


Acte de Foi

by nisakomi



Category: K-pop, SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dance, Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 07:45:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 105,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6365353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nisakomi/pseuds/nisakomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wonwoo leaps into the air and his jumps take him up, up, and up. Even when Junhui stops practicing his pirouettes, his head spins, spins, and spins. Those two things may or may not be related, but Junhui’s too busy trying to survive his third and final year of high school to notice.</p><p>A ballet AU, of sorts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. So High

**Author's Note:**

> _from up above i heard  
>  the angels sing to me these words  
> and sometimes, in your eyes  
> i see the beauty in the world_
> 
> ϟ 
> 
> _**acte de foi** : an act of faith performed when the dancer leaps from the arms of several chorus dancers into the arms of the male principal._
> 
> is it too late to say my hand slipped? this story came to me in full flight, and would not put me down until i siphoned it into words. wonhui remains a dragon breathing fire down my neck, but this particular beast finally sleeps (and i too would like a nap ~~although ain’t no rest for the wicked gotta start working on primordium now i guess~~ ).
> 
> !!important warning!! **(please read)**.  
>  as per the context of the high school setting, 96-line are 17-18 in this story. in south korea, the age of consent is listed as 13 under the criminal act. however, a separate decree indicates only those who have reached adulthood, i.e. 19 years of age by international calculation, as being able to legally provide consent. please be warned that while never depicted, certain characters under the age of the majority are implied to be sexually active.
> 
> content notes.   
>  ϟ for visual reference of the dance terminology, i have included links to a few quick videos in the end notes. please also refer to the end notes for further information on music, characters, setting, pairings, and a general disclaimer.
> 
> ϟ 
> 
> _send your storm  
>  and your lightning  
> to strike  
> me between the eyes_

“What do you mean you’ve never spoken to him?” Soonyoung half-whispered before raising his left arm above his head into fifth position. He swept his torso up and over his hips to fold neatly in half, nose pressed into his shins. Bleached hair swung around his head, the coarse and dry strands frizzy from damage. With his scalp visible, the dark roots of his original colour contrasted starkly against the pale blond.

Junhui was doubled over in a back bend, standing on his toes, the muscles in his calves and glutes pulled tight in turn out position. He shook his head, the hair of the ponytail tied at the base of his neck moving like a pendulum. Upside down, the rotation of his neck caused a weird dizzying feeling in his stomach and he scrunched his nose to dispel the nausea. He came upright in order to shrug his shoulders, before curving back down with both his hands on the barre.

Jihoon, who was standing on the other side of Soonyoung, turned to them, swinging his knee from side to side in order to loosen his hip flexors. At his shift, Junhui looked over Soonyoung’s shoulder in order to be able to see Jihoon’s face while he spoke. “Aren’t you close to Mingyu? Wait. I mean, I _know_ you’re close to Mingyu. How can that be possible?”

Before Junhui could respond, Soonyoung mumbled something into his knees that neither Jihoon nor Junhui understood.

Jihoon toed Soonyoung in the back of his calf, causing Soonyoung to buckle forward, quietly yelp, and straighten up immediately. He flushed red from the head rush and had to blink a few times to clear his vision before grumbling, “I said that’s just because Junhui thought he was a cute junior to take care of until he realized Mingyu’s really good at taking care of himself.”

The barre creaked as Jihoon rested his ankle on it and leaned his bodyweight forward to stretch out his hamstring. “That wasn’t my point. The point is they’re friends with each other, and Mingyu and Wonwoo are practically married. If he knows Mingyu, he must’ve interacted with Wonwoo.” Jihoon shuffled his standing foot backward to form a sort of split on the barre before continuing. “Also, Junhui’s friends with us. We’re friends with Wonwoo. In fact, we’ve known him since fucking middle school. They hang out in the same group. Seriously, how the hell is this possible?”

“Yeah, wait. Even before we think about that connection,” Soonyoung started saying, eyes widening and narrowing in the span of a second as he placed his hands over his hips. He rolled his ankles gently to warm them up, but also so that he could talk to Junhui directly without looking like he was just being idle. “You’ve been in the same high school for going on three years. Surely you’ve at least said ‘hi’? There are only 27 dance majors in our entire graduating class!”

Junhui turned the corners of his lips down and shook his head sadly. Soonyoung gave him an unsympathetic look before turning abruptly and moving on to grand pliés.

“Maybe it’s not that surprising. Wonwoo was always pretty damn introverted,” Jihoon mused while holding his stretch. He switched legs and leaned forward again, using one hand to rub the underside of his knee. “And Junhui’s…”

“And my only friends in our year are you two assholes?” Junhui prompted, lifting an eyebrow before rolling his eyes.

“You know, I can’t decide if I regret or delight in you picking up swear words from Jihoon.” Soonyoung swept back his hair with his headband. “Anyway, Wonwoo _remains_ an introvert to this day,” he corrected with a sly smirk, “which is going to make this amazing to watch considering how awkward Junhui gets when he has to talk to brick walls types. Remember the Haeun disaster? That was spectacular.” He spoke facing forward in a low knee bend, but Junhui could see and rue the shameless smile on Soonyoung’s lips.

Junhui vividly remembered the time he was forced to partner with Lee Haeun back in first year. She was a popular singing major who had been a senior when they were freshmen, but took the same intro drama class as Junhui as an elective. They were working on dialogue timing for their unit assignment, but because Junhui could never get her to commit more than shy nods or shakes of the head when they were practicing, Haeun-sunbaenim had been either early or late for every single line she delivered during their evaluation.

Her mark, of course, was abysmal. In the aftermath, Haeun had been found sobbing in the third floor girls’ bathroom and her friends had gotten angry at Junhui, thinking he had intentionally sabotaged her so she wouldn’t be able to graduate. There was a witch hunt while rumours spread that some first year international student made one of the most popular girls in the school cry. Jihoon and Soonyoung were the only ones who had defended him, and if Junhui had been a parasitic fungus growing on the pair of them before the incident, they had ended up a pretty inseparable trio after.

Even when the misunderstanding was cleared up, the whole experience was a nightmare that still haunted Junhui when it came to working on group projects. He had ended up good friends with one of Haeun’s friends, Eunjoo-noona, as she seemed to realize that he was a human being instead of a bulletin board to tack labels onto, but Junhui was never able to look his actual acting partner in the eye again.

Hanging onto the bar while standing in a lunge position to stretch his calves, Junhui glared at the back of Soonyoung’s head for bringing up unpleasant memories. “This was supposed to be ‘help Junhui’ or even ‘make Junhui feel better’ time, not a chance to make fun of everything Junhui does.”

“Sucks, but it’s what you get for seeking comfort from ‘two assholes’, your words not mine.” Jihoon snickered, his eyes curved into half-moon slits that made his face appear much more amiable than his words.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure this one isn’t anyone’s fault but your own. You’ve had loads of opportunities to talk to Wonwoo before,” Soonyoung added. He arched sideways at the waist, arm raised over his head and towards Jihoon.

Junhui sighed and brought his back feet back to parallel, legs spread slightly apart, knees straight. He leaned down and pressed the palms of his hands to the floor behind his heels, his head positioned between his legs so that he was facing the other wall. He held that stretch for only a moment before rising up and almost hitting the back of his head against the barre. “Okay, no one make it obvious, but please shut up. He’s looking at us.”

“No way,” Soonyoung scoffed, rolling his head in circles to loosen his neck and shoulders. “Relax. Wonwoo is always super out of it during warm ups. He probably hasn’t even realized there are other people in the classroom yet, much less that we’re talking, or that we’re talking about him.”

Jihoon turned his head to scan their surroundings and quickly elbowed Soonyoung in the stomach. “Wonwoo isn’t the problem here, you fucking dumbass,” he hissed, before studiously returning to his own stretches.

Soonyoung slithered up and looked at Jihoon with a raised eyebrow. Jihoon tilted his head slightly toward the mirrors, and Soonyoung slowly peered sideways before whipping his head back around. He gulped, and immediately started running his leg through some rond de jambes.

“Why are you three troublemakers always doing the same exercises before class? Stop working on the things you’re good at and try to actually improve your range of motion during the warm ups!” Their ballet technique instructor, a grumpy old man who had grey hair but also the chest muscles of a pro ballet dancer, glared at them with beady eyes, his arms crossed. He huffed loudly before going back to his own lesson preparations.

Junhui, Soonyoung, and Jihoon winced. Scolded in front of the class like elementary school kids, when they were only a year from graduating high school.

“I can’t believe I hang out with you two. Thanks for always getting me in trouble, you fuckers,” Jihoon muttered, before turning away with a dark scowl on his face.

Junhui opened his mouth to give an indignant squawk, ready to protest that it was Soonyoung who came up with the bad ideas, most of the time. But Soonyoung was prepared for this outcome, and slapped Junhui’s arm and gave him a forced smile. Junhui rolled his eyes once again and returned to his stretches. He’d get them both back later.

For now, he had his newly formed Wonwoo conundrum to consider.

To mark the end of their arts high school program, all of the senior students had to finish a year-long independent project. The dancers were expected to choreograph a small group performance. In a meeting during his break just prior to technique class, the program advisor informed Junhui that he had been assigned to work on a duet with Jeon Wonwoo for the year end show.

On paper, it made sense.

Soonyoung and Jihoon, although they had taken other classes throughout high school, were most comfortable dancing hip hop. They had worked together numerous times over the years, not only choreographing their own routines to perform at competitions, but composing the background music they used and recording it themselves. Even if Junhui specialized in the same style, he’d be unlikely to pair up with either of them since they always seemed to exist as one entity. The only option would have been a group of three. That could have been a lot of fun if Junhui knew a thing about hip hop.

Some of their other classmates were the polar opposite style-wise, in the “I’ve-never-taken-anything-that-wasn’t-ballet” type of way. Among them were many students who had much more partnering practice than Junhui, so it was unlikely for him to be getting a pas de deux above those who had the requisite preparation. And then there was an amalgamation of jazz, folk, and ensemble focused dancers, all of those being styles Junhui knew very little about. Wonwoo was one of the few other dancers who had classical training but worked mostly in contemporary repertoire. They also shared dance elective classes and theoretically had known each other for the past two years. The program director probably thought he was doing everyone a favour, putting them together.

Unfortunately, despite running in fairly similar friend circles, going to the same high school, and taking essentially all the same classes, Junhui had never spoken to Wonwoo before. Ever.

The closest they had gotten to having a conversation was when they had been walking past each other in the hallway in junior year, and Mingyu had missed Wonwoo holding out a hand for a high five to yell and style Junhui’s hair. They had stared at each other, Junhui not being able to do anything but stand there awkwardly as Mingyu quickly pulled together a tight ponytail and Wonwoo had watched with a blank look on his face. Junhui had tried to appear as nonchalant as possible. It was weird in retrospect that he hadn’t attempted a stupid joke, but Wonwoo’s face looked like it was two seconds from glaring angrily at him, and certainly hadn’t seemed receptive to humour. Neither of them ended up saying a word then, with only Junhui and Mingyu exchanging a time to meet up later in the day.

Soonyoung was right. Junhui _was_ awkward with the introverted types. At this realization, he nearly lost his balance while rushing to catch up his arms in the port de bras for their plié exercise at the barre. It took muttering a firm rebuke to himself to forcefully regain focus.

Once they got to their frappé exercise, he snuck a glance at Wonwoo, unable to resist using his eyes to trace the curve of Wonwoo’s calf muscle in retiré and the jut of his collarbone while his arms were held in fifth. Wonwoo’s chin was tilted up ever so slightly, giving the appearance that his nose bridge was even higher than it already was, aquiline where Junhui’s was pointy. Head held like that, the sharpness of Wonwoo’s jaw was like a razor’s edge, casting a harsh shadow over his neck. It contrasted the softness in his eyes, framed delicately by dark eyelashes. Just from looking at him, Junhui’s stomach twisted into knots.

Watching him served as a reminder to Junhui of why he had immediately presented the issue of his project partner to Soonyoung and Jihoon. Sure there was the part about being strangers who had heard of each other but didn’t really know each other, but that problem could be resolved eventually. His bigger concern, and one that had no immediate or long-term solution, was that Wonwoo was _really really good_.

It was true that Junhui’s back was the bendiest out of everyone in their class, but that was his only claim to fame. Wonwoo easily had the nicest spins, jumps, and extensions out of anyone in their entire school. Maybe during all three years they had attended. Teachers praised him all the time, and students both older and younger than them all had heard of his talent and showered him with presents and praise. It certainly didn’t hurt that Wonwoo was also known as one of the best-looking dancers, although almost everyone was too afraid to go up to him and tell him that. Junhui gulped, getting flashbacks to Haeun again, and wondered if he would have another experience where he’d drag Wonwoo down and get chewed out by his admirers.

There was still a reasonable possibility that he could keep up with him, Junhui believed, when they went through the rest of barre, centre, and adage. He kept a close eye to compare their abilities, feeling pretty good throughout the exercises when they were doing developpés and grands battements. Even when Wonwoo finished his quintuple pirouette while Junhui was still trying to land a proper quadruple, he hadn’t felt explicitly inferior because none of that would be a true problem on stage. Wonwoo’s phenomenal turning technique was why he got so many solos after all, but they could choreograph around that. Couldn’t they?

It was the allegro movements that dashed his optimism.

He watched Wonwoo leap through a series of coupés jetés en tournant across the diagonal length of the studio that ended with him throwing his weight diagonally in front of him before brushing his back leg forward and extending it, his foot pressed into the ground to jump and turn thrice in the air before landing with his back knee pointed outward, toes just above his calf, finishing with a dignified lift of his head.

A warbled groan escaped Junhui’s lips and his regular class partner, Park Soohee, quickly turned her head to both sides to check if anyone had heard him before glaring at Junhui.

“Hey! I don’t need this from you right now, you _know_ I need all the focus I can get for centre work!” Her feverish whisper barely carried to his ears, and she spoke without looking at him, cheeks tinged pink with embarrassment at his weird noises. With her nostrils flared outward, she looked ready to smack him.

“You’ll be fine,” he said, thinking to himself that there were still two pairs before they had to go, and that she’d figure it out by then. “You’ve got this.” They usually went close to the end for this exact reason. Well, maybe she hadn’t gotten this. Truthfully, Soohee tended to get berated a lot for her dancing, but she had always been willing to partner with him when he was the outsider, so he didn’t really mind partnering with her now that she was considered by some of their classmates as dead weight.

Of course, Wonwoo had gone in the very first group and nailed everything, including a final triple saut de basque. Triple!

Soonyoung and Jihoon, who had paired up as usual, were snickering beside him at all the distressed sounds he was making without trying to hide their amusement. Junhui shot them a dark look and then grimaced when he turned around and saw Wonwoo giving the instructor a quick bow for the applause and compliment he received. As if Junhui didn’t have enough nightmares about across the floor exercises already.

Junhui could jump and split in midair while turning. He could definitely manage a decent saut de basque. It wasn’t like he was bad at dancing, not when he had auditioned and made it into an arts high school in a completely different country specifically because of his abilities in dance.

Not in his dreams, however, could he achieve anywhere near the same height in his jumps as Jeon Wonwoo could. Wonwoo made them look easy, which they were decidedly not.

Soohee definitely didn’t find them easy. When it came to their turn, she fumbled through the steps awkwardly, eyes facing the mirror nearly the entire time they traversed the width of the room, and she ended two whole counts behind the music.

Junhui managed to get across the floor without being criticized, but that was the bare minimum, and not something to be proud of. He knew, as he shuffled his way back to the corner while giving a consoling smile to Soohee, who had received a tongue clucking (that was perhaps even more mortifying than being yelled at), that even if Junhui had been praised, it wouldn’t have mattered.

Junhui had seen enough of Wonwoo to know this: He was doomed.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“What the fuck did you order for me?” Soonyoung panted, waving his hand to fan a stream of air at himself. Sweat dripped down his forehead and clumped his bangs together. He sucked in a big breath to try to cool his tongue, and gratefully accepted the napkins Jihoon handed him in order to wipe his mouth clean.

All three of them had an hour free right after morning technique class, by luck rather than planning, although even if they didn’t have the extra period before lunch, they’d probably still be eating together as they had been for years.

“Spicy food is good for you, even more so when it’s cold outside. Warms you right up!” Junhui declared loudly, watching Jihoon eye his bowl of soup and poke it away slightly. “What, aren’t you going to eat?” He made a big show of slurping up his own noodles and splashed hot soup everywhere.

“And let you try to kill me with the food I paid for myself? No fucking thanks.” Jihoon muttered, before resting his chin on a sleeve covered hand.

“Actually,” Soonyoung said through a mouthful of food, “it tastes really good.” He chewed, swallowed, and let out a long sigh. He kept his mouth open as he dabbed all over his face and neck with a fresh napkin, trying to get rid of the sweat pooling there.

“See?” Junhui beamed. He knew how to retaliate to make Jihoon and Soonyoung suffer, but not to the point that they would refuse to eat out with him anymore. He had simply ordered them each a hot beef noodle soup that was both spicy and delicious. He picked up a piece of meat with his chopsticks and held it out, offering it to Jihoon.

Jihoon gave him a death glare, which Junhui, even after all this time, never could anticipate or defend himself against. He recoiled, and ate the slice himself sadly.

Soonyoung, however, could get Jihoon to do anything. _Anything_. He broke apart a pair of wooden chopsticks and shoved them into Jihoon’s hands. Jihoon rolled his eyes at the insistence, but pulled the bowl back towards himself, and gingerly picked up a single noodle. He eyed it speculatively as it dangled from his chopsticks.

“It’s not going to kill you,” Soonyoung joked. When Jihoon scowled at him, he rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to his own food, having played his part.

Junhui watched eagerly as Jihoon took a tentative bite, chewed, swallowed, and proceeded to eat some more. And more. And more. Jihoon paused, looked up at Junhui, giving him a closed-mouth smile with eyes threatening death, and started shovelling noodles into his mouth.

Pleased, but smart enough not to vocalize his thoughts lest it end in Jihoon attacking him, Junhui let himself eat at his own pace, unfazed by the fiery sensation in his mouth. As he ate, he looked around the Chinese restaurant. He knew almost all of the customers who were seated there, by face if not by name, having frequented the store often throughout the years. There was a fast food restaurant beside it that was more popular with the other students, especially the younger ones who had never had the freedom to choose their own diets before, but Junhui had been dragging his friends here ever since he realized the owners were actually Chinese and could make him food that wasn’t on the menu, and wasn’t a Korean interpretation of Chinese food.

“Jeez, that’s spicy,” Soonyoung said, laying his chopsticks across the bowl after he finished eating. He wiped his mouth, and blinked rapidly.

“Thanks for stating the fucking obvious. Shit, are you crying?” Jihoon cackled and shoved Soonyoung’s arm in amusement. He still had some food left, however, and went back to slurping noodles while Soonyoung slung an arm around his neck.

“Don’t be silly, my eyeballs are just sweating.”

Junhui laughed loudly enough to attract the attention of several other patrons, earning him a rather hard smack on the arm by Jihoon. He ignored Jihoon’s hiss at him to be less shameless in public and said, as loudly as always, “I’d believe that about you, I mean, you sweat a lot.”

“My body’s just adapted well to cooling itself down, I’m clearly more evolved than you!” Soonyoung replied indignantly, withdrawing his arm from around Jihoon so that he could use both his index fingers to tug the corners of his lips down in an exaggerated frown.

“Of course, of course, and my body’s just adapted well to eating tasty food,” Junhui said consolingly, nodding his head with a smirk.

Soonyoung rolled his eyes. “I was going to ask if you wanted to come with Jihoonie and me to the music store after you’re done class to pick up a new album. We’re gonna head over to his studio after to work on a song for our project. Did you know we have to check-in with Han-saem twice a semester to make sure we’re on track? It’s just like having midterms.”

Junhui groaned and smashed his face against the lacquered wooden table. Right, the final project. He had temporarily been able to forget about it doing the only thing that always made him happy.

Food, and the eating of food were the only things that would never disappoint him.

Jihoon kissed his teeth and threw a wadded up tissue at his head. “Sit up, fuckface! You’re getting soup in your hair.” His swearing drew the attention of a patron nearby, who shot them a scandalized look. She really shouldn’t have expected better, eating at a restaurant so close to a school.

Junhui bolted up, hurriedly grabbing the napkin and assessing the damage. When he realized there was nothing actually in his hair and Jihoon was just trying to get him to be less theatrical in public, he pouted. “Aww, Jihoonie, I didn’t know you cared.”

There was a very ominous clack of chopsticks against a bowl, after which Junhui slowly started shifting backwards.

Soonyoung rubbed Jihoon’s arm soothingly, although his expression was one of amusement. “See, Junhui, you do know fear. You need to learn boundaries though, otherwise I’m just going to think you have a death wish if you’re still riling up this one,” Soonyoung stopped rubbing circles to smack Jihoon’s hand with his own, “after all these years.”

“He does it on purpose,” Jihoon grumbled, pushing Soonyoung away but leaving their fingers entwined. “touchy-feely bastard knows exactly which buttons to push.”

“And yet you still agree to be seen with me in public.” Junhui stuck his tongue out at him, but didn’t deny Jihoon’s point. “Anyway I can’t come, there’s a Chinese martial arts club meeting at six, and I told Minghao I’d show up to this one.” Not to mention there was little point in thinking about music when he hadn’t ever talked to his partner yet. Junhui grimaced. “By the way, when’s the first check-in?” he asked with some trepidation.

“Oh…I forgot today was Wednesday. Skip next week’s meeting so we can hang, yeah?” Soonyoung said, distracted. He was busy counting out bills to pay for the meal, since Jihoon had finally finished.

“Not everyone takes commitments as lightly as you do, you piece of shit,” Jihoon said, smacking Soonyoung hard on the side of the head. “Anyway, I think it’s in a few weeks to make sure we ‘get started’.” His fingers made quotation marks in the air around his head. “It’s in the syllabus we got, which, of course, neither of you have or will bother to read.”

Junhui sighed and started eating his noodles one at a time with a pout. “Why would we need to read anything when you can just tell us what it says? Besides, you know I’m the opposite of committed to this club.” He mumbled around his food, exaggeratedly spreading and clamping his jaw to chew the last bits of vegetables as slowly as possible.

“You’re right. How could I forget? The only thing you’re committed to is food.” Jihoon held his arms out, palms up, and stared upwards at the immobile ceiling fan. He closed his eyes against the fluorescent lighting and shook his head. “Neither of you ever bother reading the syllabi and use me like a walking encyclopedia for easily accessed school facts. Why am I friends with either of you again?”

Soonyoung zipped up his jacket and tucked in the ends of his scarf, getting ready to leave. “Because we’re the only ones who can put up with your prickly personality. You love us, admit it. Also, Junhui-ya, stop looking like someone stole from your bowl while you were looking away. You got paired with, like, _the_ best dancer in the class.”

Junhui let out a quiet wail, finally finished his soup, and covered his face with his hands. “That’s exactly the problem, he’s either going to make me look awful, or I’m going to end up making him do worse than he should. Also, he’s very pretty, I mean, don’t you think he’s, pretty—pretty scary? And wait a minute, did you take a slice of beef without me knowing?” He peeked out between his fingers and gave Soonyoung a suspicious glare, ready to start stabbing him with his chopsticks.

“Don’t be stupid _on top of_ being embarrassing,” Jihoon said, punctuating each word with a pat to Junhui’s head that was much harder than necessary.

Junhui winced, temporarily forgetting about Soonyoung’s infraction. He lifted one hand to protect himself and turned to look sideways at Jihoon, who was scowling as he drew out his next words, as if they were teeth being pulled out of his mouth. “You’re a…decent…dancer. And Wonwoo’s not scary. You can just get Mingyu to introduce you if that’s what you’re worried about. We’ve been over all this, Junhui, do keep up.” He gave him one last pat and stuck his arms through the sleeve of his coat quickly. “Soonyoung, I’m cold, lend me your scarf.” He stood and made grabby hands at Soonyoung.

“Get your own scarf.” Soonyoung yelped when one of Jihoon’s hands got close, and bolted out of reach. “We’ll see you tomorrow, Junhui!” Soonyoung called out behind him as the two of them left the restaurant for their afternoon classes.

Soonyoung was taking philosophy as an elective, which seemed like a lot of work, and amused Jihoon to no end. Jihoon had one of his several composition courses during the same time block. Junhui often wondered how it was possible for one high school student to have three majors, but Jihoon was taking dance, musical performance, and musical theory with composition, and he was still thriving. Junhui was dying trying to balance just dance with the advanced mathematics and physical sciences stream.

He had another hour until modern, and no other friends in their year to speak of, so finding another source of entertainment during his study period wasn’t going to be possible. After paying for his own meal, he started making his way to the library. It was a good a time as any to get some textbook readings done for his advanced chemistry class. Grades before mates, he supposed.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

Junhui texted Minghao he would be late as soon as class ended, a quarter of an hour past six o’clock. He was drenched in sweat, as clearly someone had forgotten to tell their instructor that no one worked the students too hard first week back to class. Not that he didn’t relish the challenge, but his mind was still on vacation mode, so memorizing choreography had been frustratingly difficult all afternoon. He had been used to the cursory physical conditioning that didn’t require being awake and energetic for more than two or three hours a day.

He sniffed at his underarms once he was in the dressing room, after shoving his water bottle into his locker. The sweat had mostly dried and cooled on his back, or absorbed into his leotard. He was just going to get sweaty again after wushu, and then he’d have to shower again. But he also felt kind of gross.

Around him, his male classmates were changing into lounge clothes and packing up to have nice hot showers in the comforts of their dorm rooms, instead of the showers in the school building with the leaky faucets, almost non-existent water pressure, and consistently lukewarm temperatures.

Junhui sighed, and sat on one of the benches, a single non-moving entity among joking, jostling young men slamming lockers closed and rushing back home or to the dorms. He rubbed his face with his hands and hit his own cheeks twice before stripping down.

The hottest setting produced water that was cold enough to be uncomfortable, so Junhui figured he might as well go for an unrepentantly icy shower. He cranked the taps to something that would make him freeze and settled in for the slight trickle of water, even on full blast. The initial droplets made him shiver unpleasantly, but eventually his skin felt frozen and the stiffness and ache in his muscles disappeared. He scrubbed perfunctorily, just so he wouldn’t smell even before he stepped onto the grimy gym mats, but let himself soak up water for a while after as well. He was going to be late anyway, so there was no sense in hurrying.

The changing area was quiet and still when he returned, walking through the corridor completely naked with his towel covering his head. He hummed while drying his hair, and began warbling out an Andy Lau song in Cantonese, popular when he was all of seven years old, as he pulled on a pair of boxers. The majority of the song sat in the register between his chest and head voices, which made it really uncomfortable to sing, but he strained the muscles in his neck to belt it out nonetheless, barely reaching the right pitch most of the time.

“Let's sing love songs starting from the beginning once again, with stronger feelings this time so it's hard to avoid shedding tears~” His voice cracked as he attempted to reach the last note.

From behind him, there was a soft ‘oof’ sound.

As soon as he heard it, Junhui spun around, fingers clutching his shirt to his chest, toppled over, and landed on the bench with the door of his locker jabbing into one of his shoulder blades. He winced in pain, and then his jaw dropped in shock. Somehow, he hadn’t realized that he wasn’t alone.

Junhui thought everyone had left when it was so quiet, but there, blinking as he stood in the corner where wall met locker space, was Jeon Wonwoo, a book in one hand, the other hand halfway through the motion of pulling up a sock. He was dressed in a thin long-sleeved shirt and dark sweat pants, and must’ve taken longer the others to get changed because he was attempting to read and change at the same time.

“Ah shit! I’m really sorry you heard all that,” Junhui blurted frantically, darting his eyes from side to side in embarrassment.

Wonwoo blinked and made a sort of swinging gesture with the book in his hand, as if to say _carry on_ , before returning to slowly pulling his socks on.

Mortified, Junhui shoved the rest of his clothes over his head and up to his waist in record speed, and ran out of the change rooms before Wonwoo could finish tying up his shoelaces. He kept running, all the way until he nearly barreled Minghao over at the entrance to the gym in the middle of the building.

Junhui had been roped into the Chinese martial arts club when he was still a first year who thought that it would be interesting to join something and make friends with other people who shared his interests. That was before he found out it was a beginners’ club for trying to learn basics, and Junhui ended up being just an extra pair of eyes for whenever too many people showed up at practice for only the advising teacher and club president to keep track of. By second semester of last year, Junhui had been skipping nearly every meeting. He had been considering dropping out from the group entirely, but of course, as soon as he had been paired up with a Chinese first year under the buddy system who told him he too had learned wushu as a kid, Junhui had immediately forced Minghao to join.

At the edge of the mats, Minghao placed two hands on his shoulders to steady him, and looked at Junhui’s dilated pupils and heaving chest with concern.

“Wow, when you said you were going to be late, I thought you were going to amble over and revel in my misery from afar, not rush here so quickly. Not to mention, Soonyoung-hyung laughed when I told him you’d show up at least for the first meeting, so you can tell tell him that he was wrong for me,” Minghao said. His eyes blinked big and wide, the innocent expression jarring against his snarky tone.

“I didn’t run over here to laugh at you, what are you talking about?” Junhui snapped, mind unfocused. “Oh, I told Sungil-hyung that you’d be better as a teacher than me since I can’t do anything that might re-injure my back.” He dropped his duffel bag to the ground and slid down the wall into a cross-legged position. About a dozen members were either going over what their club president had taught them or were fooling around, but Junhui’s eyes couldn’t process what he was seeing. “Anyway, I’ve really never been more embarrassed in my life.”

“You’re terrible, you know that?” Minghao laughed, took a seat as well, and gave Junhui a shove. Junhui listlessly toppled over sideways before slowly returning to an upright position.

“Oh. This is serious,” Minghao blinked at Junhui’s lethargic state. “Surely you’ll survive. You’re one of the most embarrassing people I know, hyung, you manage to pull off like six embarrassing things every morning before breakfast.” He tried for a joking tone to pull Junhui out of whatever trance had taken over him.

“Nope.” Junhui nodded continuously like a bobble-head. “Single most embarrassing thing in my life.” He nodded again. “Was just caught mostly naked, singing off-key, in front of the guy I’m supposed to be partnering with for the year end performance.” He gave one last nod, feeling the friction of his head against the wall and becoming painfully aware that this was not just a bad dream.

Minghao frowned. “I’ve seen you entirely naked, hunched over a stuffed bunny, and completely failing at an attempt to rap with a water bottle as a microphone. According to Soonyoung-hyung, your first meeting with Jihoon involved you physically running him over and toppling the contents of a broom closet onto him. In comparison, how is this worse?” He stretched his legs out in front of him, and wiggled his toes.

Junhui didn’t bat an eyelash. The first example was not even in the top ten list of weird shit Minghao has seen him doing. And well, the situation with Soonyoung and Jihoon had been…complicated. That time, Junhui had not been nearly as embarrassed as Jihoon…or Soonyoung for that matter.

In general, Junhui could admit that he was weird, but that didn’t mean he didn’t try to appear well-adjusted, especially to strangers. “The thing is that you _know_ me. I got the chance to present a cool and smooth hyung image to you before slowly easing you into my weirdness. And Jihoon was going to look at me with disdain no matter how I first met him. How am I supposed to act normal enough get through this project now?” He picked at the peeling paint on the gymnasium floor. “Now Wonwoo definitely thinks I’m a loser. What if he heads straight to the program advisor and asks to switch partners? That would be horrifying. Well, maybe not, then I wouldn’t have to see him and be embarrassed again,” he rambled.

“I’ve never thought you were cool, hyung.” Minghao had a way of not taking his shit that almost matched Soonyoung and Jihoon. That was probably why they were still friends. Or was that a reason not to be friends?

“Thank you for not sparing my pride,” Junhui replied, “You are definitely helping me right now.”

“Well I mean, I also never thought you had any shame but clearly you’re feeling embarrassed right now, so you never know. Honestly, it’s so weird seeing you like this!” Minghao laughed and absently patted Junhui’s head. “It’ll be okay. Either he switches partners and you can avoid him while on the same campus for the rest of your not very long time remaining here, or he thinks you’re crazy but puts up with it. He’s not going to bring it up and obviously you wouldn’t either so it’ll just be slightly awkward, but you’ll live.”

Junhui whimpered a little and gave Minghao a sad frown, too interested in wallowing in self-pity to acknowledge the logic in his statement. He was right, Junhui was usually pretty shameless, even when he did really stupid things in front of strangers. Why was Wonwoo different?

Minghao pulled Junhui into a chokehold before he thought about it any longer, making his eyes water until he finally coughed and reached out a hand to knock on the floor below them, begging for mercy.

“I can’t believe I have to give you life advice, you’re supposed to be older than me,” Minghao teased. “How is it that you’ve never given Wonwoo-hyung your whole pretending to be popular and sane act yet anyway?”

Junhui stared at him from his position on the ground. “Wait a second, how do _you_ know Wonwoo?”

“He’s friends with Mingyu, and I see him around all the time. He’s always the last one out of the studio before breaking class starts.” Minghao shrugged. “How do you _not_ know Wonwoo-hyung? You go to the same high school? You’re in the same grade? Not only that but you’re both in dance stream and have all the same friends?”

“Trust me, I’ve been trying to come up with an answer to that question all day.” Junhui groaned and punched Minghao’s arm as a coping mechanism for his embarrassment.

He’d never needed a coping mechanism for embarrassment before.

Minghao shoved his hand away and karate chopped Junhui’s neck for good measure. “Alright. The good news is I’ve decided I’ll stay in the club. I can probably become club president next year, and the extra specs will look good on my CV. Plus I can use this mat space to practice freeze holds whenever I get bored. Good job Junhui-hyung, you don’t mess up everything! See? Things really will be okay.”

He sighed. “You know, that might be the most comforting thing that I’ve heard all day.”

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

Minghao was wrong. It was not okay. Nothing was okay.

Junhui carried his lunch tray to where Soonyoung had waved him over, and promptly dropped everything onto the table. Stew spilled out of the bowl onto the metal, and his spoon and chopsticks clattered against each other.

Jihoon was sitting there, obviously. But so was Wonwoo, who Junhui hadn’t been able to see sitting across from Mingyu because of Mingyu’s overly long body, and also frankly because Wonwoo was hidden behind the mountains of food on his tray. Luckily, Wonwoo hadn’t noticed him yet, despite the clamour Junhui had created, engrossed in whatever book he was reading today. It might have been the same book, Junhui wasn’t exactly paying attention to details when he had been running away. Which he was about to do again.

Junhui picked his tray back up and started to back up. Everything would be okay if he could escape.

“Hyung,” Mingyu called, grabbing Junhui’s wrist and pulling him firmly towards the table, preventing his escape. “You startled me. Aren’t you going to congratulate me on finishing my first year of high school? I haven’t seen you since the last day of class when you came to visit with Soonyoung and Jihoon. It’s been two weeks! Were you studying the entire time?”

Junhui smiled nervously at Mingyu, whose tight grip on his arm forced him to sit down while holding back a grimace. Why was this happening to him. Why was the world conspiring against him. Why couldn’t he just dissolve into the air and cease to exist. “Congrats on starting second year, kid,” he managed. He spared a glance down the aisle, mourning his getaway route with a dramatic forlorn look on his face.

Jihoon looked at him like he had grown a second head, which wasn’t all that uncommon. Jihoon gave him that look something like thirteen times a day.

Soonyoung, ever too helpful, was looking back and forth between him and Wonwoo. Junhui made puppy eyes at Soonyoung, and pulled his lips down into a frown that he hoped would inspire sympathy. Soonyoung opened his mouth to say something and Junhui immediately made slicing motions across his neck, face filled with alarm and mortification.

Soonyoung didn’t take the hint. “Wonwoo-goon, you and Junhui are working together for your final project, right?” His voice was loud and clear and Junhui immediately wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole so he would never have to see or talk to anyone ever again.

Wonwoo looked up from his book, closed it, set it down, and picked up his chopsticks. “Oh, yeah we are. Wow, I’m starving.” He started shovelling vegetables into his mouth, and closed his lips around a big spoonful of rice before chewing. It barely made a dent since he just had so much more food than the rest of them.

Junhui gaped at him. Soonyoung shot Junhui a murderous look, and furiously mouthed at him to fix his jaw. Junhui was good enough at lip reading to understand Soonyoung telling him not to be embarrassing, but Soonyoung didn’t know that Junhui had already embarrassed himself in front of Wonwoo. Although…Wonwoo wasn’t acting like it.

Before anyone else had a chance to say anything, Mingyu yelped from right beside Junhui’s ear. “Really?” He had completely missed the barrage of scolding Soonyoung had been unleashing on Junhui. “That’s so cool! I can come watch both of you practice at the same time. Will you get me tickets to the year end show then?”

Wonwoo scoffed. “Buy your own tickets, kid,” he said. Junhui snorted unattractively and clamped a hand over his mouth. Wonwoo didn’t raise his head, but Soonyoung shot him another look.

Mingyu was undeterred. “Fine, fine. But I have to get to spend as much time as possible with you guys before you graduate!” He looked at Junhui, closed his mouth before saying anything, and wrapped Junhui’s hand around his spoon. He gave him an encouraging look to start eating, and Junhui reluctantly obeyed.

The smile on Mingyu’s face made up for his pushiness, but Junhui couldn’t bring himself to smile back. His hand bumped Mingyu’s when they went to pick up food at the same time, and he started apologizing profusely.

Wonwoo looked up this time with a surprised expression, holding a piece of cabbage between his lips. Junhui’s attention was caught by the movement of the vegetable in Wonwoo’s mouth as he turned his head back and forth, looking between Mingyu and Junhui with confusion. Junhui stopped apologizing and looked away quickly, feeling embarrassment rise in him again.

Mingyu laughed openly. He set down his chopsticks and twisted his entire torso toward Junhui patting his hand warmly. “Jihoon-hyung and Soonyoung-hyung said you guys watch movies together and that I could join you. Wonwoo-hyung’s coming too right?” Mingyu turned to face forward again and rapped Wonwoo’s tray with his knuckles.

“Uh-huh,” Wonwoo agreed, taking a pause from devouring his food to look at Junhui, as if apologizing for Mingyu’s overenthusiasm. The ends of his lips curved very slightly upwards and Junhui felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. It was a weird sensation, like someone had taken all of his internal organs and jumbled them together.

He frowned. Was Wonwoo pretending that Junhui wasn’t the most embarrassing person in the world? Junhui could play that game. Just because Minghao wasn’t willing to pretend for the sake of his pride, didn’t mean that Junhui didn’t enjoy acting as if he were normal.

“Hyung,” Mingyu said, poking Junhui’s cheek with a finger, “look happier. I missed you.”

Junhui laughed awkwardly, forcing his mouth to form a smile, and slung his arm around Mingyu’s neck. “I missed you too,” he said, and found that he meant it.

“Good,” Mingyu replied. He sat down his chopsticks, taking a break from his meal, and started making small braids in Junhui’s hair. Wonwoo’s smile grew wider at the pair of them when he saw, although it dropped quickly so he could continue eating. Junhui saw the brief change in expression and patted Mingyu’s thigh in gratitude for making him look good, his other hand coming up to pat his own stomach which was churning frantically for some reason.

“So anyway,” Mingyu began. He whipped out his phone to show Junhui a picture of a girl with large round eyes and full cheeks, smiling demurely with her hair tucked into a neat braided crown around her head. “Isn’t it pretty? It took me so long to get her to sit still long enough for this but this might be my best work yet. You have to let me do the same to your hair sometime!” Junhui ate and nodded at the appropriate moments while Mingyu recounted stories of things that had happened to him over the break, mostly involving his younger sister’s antics.

Eventually, Soonyoung put down his chopsticks and chomped on pickled radishes with his head tilted. After swallowing, he asked, “Junhui-ya, where’s Minghao?”

“With your favourite vocal major—they were watching some drama together the last I saw.” Junhui didn’t look up. He waved his spoon around airily before continuing his preplanned order of eating the food on his tray.

“Oh yeah! I saw them in a classroom on the east wing of the second floor when I was making my way down here,” Mingyu supplied. He was engaged in a chopsticks battle with Wonwoo after stealing a piece of kimchi from his tray without any stealth.

“Seokminnie?” Soonyoung asked, face lit up with excitement at the possibilities.

“Yup,” Junhui confirmed, popping the ‘p’ before closing his mouth around a piece of beef.

All of the surrounding tables heard Soonyoung’s loud announcement that he hadn’t seen Seokmin in two weeks and should go see what his dongsaeng got up to during the break. He rushed through eating the rest of his rice, getting stew all over the edges of his lips. Jihoon grimaced while he reached out a thumb to wipe off the remnants of food around his mouth, but his hand remained suspended in midair when Soonyoung leapt to his feet with his tray precariously held in one hand.

Jihoon blinked and Mingyu burst out laughing. “Hyung, you better go make sure that the two of them don’t end up traumatizing Minghao or burning down the school.”

“I’m not a babysitter,” Jihoon said darkly, wiping at his fingers with a napkin like he could get rid of Soonyoung’s germs if he scrubbed hard enough, which amused Junhui to no end. Jihoon sighed when he saw Junhui giving him a wide smirk, shook his arm so that the sleeve of his shirt would dangle off his fingertips, and raised his head to look back and forth between Junhui and Mingyu. Jihoon’s mouth was pulled to one side in a slant, and the exasperation on his face was perhaps even louder than Soonyoung’s voice.

After stopping with his food halfway to his mouth, Junhui raised his eyebrows. “What? It’s not like you won’t still go check up on them.” He continued eating and watched as Jihoon sighed with resignation.

The chopsticks and spoon clattered as Jihoon dropped them onto an empty plate. He gathered his things and stood, lifting a hand behind him but not bothering to voice his farewell. His parting words are a grumble of, “Knowing my luck, Seungkwan will have found them too and that will be a _real_ party.”

“True, Boo Seungkwan’s a party unto himself!” Mingyu called out after him.

Junhui gave Mingyu a wry look. Seungkwan and Seokmin were fun, but Junhui knew them as ‘Soonyoung’s friends’ rather than having them under his wing himself. Younger students who looked up to you tended to agree to minion labour, and that was originally what adopting Minghao and Mingyu was about. Except neither of them turned out to need help or advice or protection, at least not from Junhui, and both of them refused to listen to any of Junhui’s commands since there wasn’t any exchange involved.

Rice grains flew as Mingyu shovelled the last of his food into his mouth. When he finished eating, he elbowed Junhui in the side. “Come on, both of you, let’s go find out what they’re up to!” He egged him and Wonwoo into hurrying, before bolting off to put away his tray.

Wonwoo blinked and shared a look of bewilderment with Junhui, who chuckled awkwardly and accidentally knocked over his spoon, splashing stew up into the air. The chuckle stuttered into an apologetic smile despite not creating a mess, and Wonwoo, watching everything unfold before him, didn’t say anything or change his facial expression at all. Instead, he stood and tilted his head, before standing with his tray to walk calmly to join the others without looking back to see if Junhui would follow. Junhui sighed and lifted up a hand to scratch at the back of his neck. To borrow Jihoon’s words, _fucking hell_.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

It was half past dead when Junhui felt the presence beside his shoulder. Or at least, he felt like he was dead after his last class of the week, a mandatory repertoire component that forced them to rehearse the same 32 measures of music for two hours straight. At least he wasn’t drenched in sweat, since they were given periodic breaks between run-throughs as they alternated groups. His hair sprawled out on the floor around his head while his legs hung in a straddle against the wall and he turned the page of the book he was reading to pass the time of his stretching cool-down.

A face appeared over his head, upside down from his point of view. With a guarded expression, the mouth carefully formed the words, “Junhui-ssi, would you like to meet over the weekend to work on our project together?”

Junhui lurched sideways, wincing when he rammed his knee against the wall in his haste to sit up and Wonwoo flinched backward at the speed of his movement, as well as their proximity once Junhui was sitting upright. “Just Junhui is fine,” he said quickly, closing the book around a slip of note paper he was using as a bookmark.

Who the fuck gave each other that honorific when they were in the same grade in high school? He rubbed his palm over the area between his tibia and patella, diverting his focus from the twinge that remained to the warm circles he pressed against the joint and tried not to think about what that said about their relationship, or specifically, lack thereof.

Wonwoo nodded shallowly, crouched in front of him, and held out a ripped off piece of lined paper. His wrist flicked outward when Junhui didn’t move forward to take it from him, so that it was dangled just under Junhui’s nose and he could see what was on it.

Junhui frowned as he took the paper with both hands, silently reading the phone number. He looked up at Wonwoo with some puzzlement.

Who still used pen and paper for exchanging phone numbers? A guy who still read physical books, it appeared. Junhui had to stretch to jerk his stuff over from the storage shelf and his bag landed with a thud on the ground, catching the attention of a few of the other stragglers. Junhui paid them no attention as he stuck his hand into the front opening and sifted around in a search that yielded nothing. Wonwoo didn’t say anything as Junhui clucked his tongue, zipping his bag up again after tossing the book inside to switch his search to his coat. He looked upward as he felt around his pockets, and finally withdrew the slim phone he was looking for with a satisfied pursed-lipped smile.

It took him a few moments to read off the number, punch it into his phone, and double check that each of the numbers were in the right order and entered correctly. He saved it in his contacts before switching apps to send ‘ _this is junhui!! (=ﾟωﾟ)ﾉ_ ’ so they wouldn’t have to repeat the struggle of making sure that the digits were right.

When Junhui looked up to hand the sheet of paper back to him, Wonwoo was waiting expectantly to be given a number in return. Wonwoo blinked at him, mouth resting in a flat line, eyebrows slightly raised. Junhui shook his head. “Check your texts.”

Wordlessly, Wonwoo stood up from his perched position, smooth like a cat, and glided toward his belongings without any sound coming from his feet. He lifted away the folded sweater on top of his bag, setting it on top of the shelves still in a neat square. His arm extended down into one of the side pockets in his bag, and he fished out his phone without any digging.

Junhui tried not to stare at him while Wonwoo squinted at the screen. He yanked out the sweats he had stuffed into his bag, valiantly using his other hand to attempt to hold down the notebooks and pens that were drawn along as he tugged upward on the fabric. He stood to pull the sweatpants over his tights, and couldn’t help but watch Wonwoo’s face shift from understanding to an unconcealed snort. His head turned to look at Junhui and he pointed at his phone. “Got it.”

His phone vibrated from the next notification. ‘ _hello junhui, please tell me how to pronounce open bracket equal sign dot omega dot close bracket slash!_ ’

Not rolling his eyes took Junhui some conscious willpower, but he managed to distract himself with slipping an oversized hoodie over his leotard, head getting stuck halfway and flailing his arms a little to pop his head through the collar. Knowing him, he’d end up falling asleep in this outfit, without showering, after passing out on his bed within moments of returning to his dorm room.

It was a Friday night, and he had been meaning to take advantage of the light work load during the first week back to class to hang out, but over the course of the week it had become apparent that there wasn’t going to be any time during senior year for him to play around. Between class, university applications, and this graduation project, he was juggling a lot. First week back and he was already giving up on regular sleep schedules, taking care of his appearance, or scrupulous hygiene. Junhui adjusted the hood of the sweater, fixed his collar and evened out the lengths of the drawstrings. Well, he had made the effort to be presentable, even if he was in loungewear. After tucking his ballet slippers into his bag and rolling on a pair of socks over his feet, he was mostly ready to head out.

Junhui reached up to tug the elastic off from his ponytail. His hair cascaded down around his shoulders and he ran a hand carelessly through it, easing apart some tangles with his fingers. He gave his head a good shake, letting his part fall naturally to one side, and combing through his bangs to have them fall sideways across his forehead.

When he turned to face the door, bag slung over one shoulder, Wonwoo was looking at him. Those dark eyes unnerved him with their lack of blinking and intense focus. Junhui stared back and watched the bob of Wonwoo’s Adam’s apple with a tightness in his chest, eyes drinking in the movement of Wonwoo’s throat and lips around the words, “Do you mind studio 4B? Is tomorrow okay? I have a slight preference for Saturday over Sunday if you don’t mind?”

He replayed them in his mind to hear them, and nodded. “Sure. I’m okay with all of that.” Junhui bowed his head to swing his hair further forward, growing uncomfortably warm under Wonwoo’s scrutiny and feeling the need to hide behind his bangs. One of his hands came to rest across his lower abdomen, settling the swirling sensation. “Do you have a time you would like too?” If he woke up around the usual hour before class, he could probably finish all of his homework for English in time to grab lunch and then do some readings before seeing Wonwoo sometime in the afternoon or evening.

Wonwoo still hadn’t seemed to blink, his attention undivided from Junhui. “In the morning? Around 10?”

Junhui took a few moments to process those words. He never thought he’d hear a student willingly offer to be awake before eleven on weekends, unless it was in reluctant agreement to be dragged along with Junhui in his plans for breakfast or brunch. Yet here he was, listening to Wonwoo propose a morning practice, that would leave him with the rest of the day free so he wouldn’t have to plan around a chunk of time. It probably said a lot about him that the fact made him feel excited.

“I think it would be a good time for now, since we’d just be picking out music and working out logistics, I’d imagine. We can start earlier once we’re actually running through choreography, but it seems unreasonable now, when we don’t have anything yet.”

He blinked. The early bird in Junhui sang out a warbling call and he forced it to shut up by fiddling with the strap of his bag over his shoulder. “That sounds good, I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

Wonwoo nodded his head once and turned around to fiddle with his things. Junhui brushed past him to get to the exit. He was surprised by how solid Wonwoo was for his thin frame, and Junhui involuntarily reached a hand to press against his upper triceps where their arms had touched, the muscle suddenly on fire.

The realization that Wonwoo hadn’t made a move on to leave the studio came belatedly, prompted by the sound of someone landing from a jump when he was already two steps out the door and close to napping on the floor. He didn’t think he really cared, but he felt compelled to turn around and look through the glass windows to find out what he was up to.

What he saw left Junhui’s chest constricted, shoulders tight as his heart beat increased and all the air left his lungs in a whoosh. Without thinking, he made two soft popping noises by pressing his lips together in time with the double grandes cabrioles he was watching. The beating against the back of the working leg’s calf by Wonwoo’s jumping leg echoed like the powerful fluttering of wings in the air, and lifted his front leg up to chest level. Each beat was a carefully enunciated movement, without any blurring or rushing, punctuated by a moment of pause just long enough for the shutter of a camera to click and capture the pose. He seemed to dangle in the air for longer than gravity should have allowed, as if suspended by an invisible wire from the ceiling.

As far as Junhui was concerned, even in his mesmerized state, people weren’t meant to jump like that. Watching someone achieve that height rendered him rooted to the spot. It wasn’t surprising, but Soonyoung was right, Wonwoo really was the best dancer in their school.

That night Junhui slept in his hoodie and sweats, and dreamt of standing in a field with his heart inexplicably racing. A kaleidoscope of butterflies swirled in front of him before changing their pattern of their flight as a group to circle around and around his head until he was completely engulfed.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

For a school that bustled with noise and activity during the week and filled to bursting with the number of people always rushing around, the building was oddly large and looming over the weekend days. Junhui wandered through empty hallways, took the stairs two at a time, and arrived at the fourth floor studio with five minutes to spare.

He wasn’t first to arrive. Standing outside by the glass windows near the entrance, he found Wonwoo in the middle of practicing pirouettes à la seconde and the discomfiting sense of déjà vu made his freshly-showered skin itchy. He took a few deep breaths as he watched Wonwoo spotting the far wall during his spin, with his elevated leg held up almost at ninety degrees, slim and straight. It was like watching a rotating top, the mechanic consistency of his turns made Junhui a little breathless. He searched inside himself for jealousy, but came up with nothing but respect for the dependability. Childishly, he scowled at the fact that Wonwoo seemed above envy.

He toed off his street shoes and stepped onto the floor, noisily rummaging through his bag all the while. He dropped his water bottle to the floor with a loud clunk. Wonwoo didn’t break concentration for a moment, continuing to adjust his alignment and finishing up another triple as Junhui scrutinized him through the mirror.

“You’re here,” Wonwoo eventually announced, letting his arms fall from first position to hang at his sides. Junhui flashed him a quick smile and nodded, hands clasped in front of him. “Can you get the door?”

Junhui backed up to grab the handle and pull it shut, staying by the exit until Wonwoo beckoned him toward the sound system controller. Wonwoo waited until Junhui was closer before speaking again. “There’s almost no one ever around here Saturday mornings, but just in case, I didn’t want to disturb anyone.” He fiddled with his phone, which was plugged into the mixer already. “Anyway, I figured a good first step would be to come up with a concept and decide on some music?”

Right. Junhui had toyed with some song ideas without serious consideration over the past few days, thinking they’d decide on something together and that he shouldn’t marry himself to one idea too early without his partner’s input. As Wonwoo tapped his finger against his phone, however, fingernail clacking on the screen, Junhui assumed that Wonwoo had already been working on several ideas of his own that he was interested in pursuing even before he had pitched them. Junhui’s shoulders dropped a fraction. “Seems like a good place to start. I’m guessing you have a couple ideas?”

It was the right thing to say, because while Junhui’s confidence in his part of this partnership had deflated a little bit, Wonwoo’s expression brightened and he straightened his posture to tell him about the songs he wanted to show him.

“Most choreographed duets are two people falling in love right? Whether in the pas de deuxs in classical ballets or modern stage choreography, man and woman, or two women, or two men…it’s usually a love story. I was thinking we could do a break up story instead?” He sounded shy as he darted quick looks at Junhui, gauging his reaction in between periods of staring at his phone.

“Alright, sure.” Despite having an initial reaction that wanted to contradict Wonwoo’s idea, Junhui bit back the half dozen examples of pas de deuxs that didn’t feature two people falling in love he immediately came up with. He was fine with angst and sad stories, so it didn’t seem worth it to contend the issue.

Wonwoo prefaced each of the three songs he wanted to propose with a quick description, and relayed what he liked or didn’t like about the piece instead of revealing their names, performers, or composers. The focus on the practical aspect drew Junhui’s attention away from the bigger picture to focus on the particular phrases of music that Wonwoo pointed out, and he imagined the movements to fit into those counts automatically. It wasn’t until after he had heard each song that he realized he couldn’t identify the lyric or harmonic arcs, or what they made him feel – only that two of them seemed like they would work better for choreographing their theme than the last.

“Um,” Junhui began, fingers laced together, ready to tell Wonwoo that he could frankly pick whatever song he liked, since it seemed like he was going to be dragging the project forward whether or not Junhui participated anyway. He stopped when Wonwoo wrinkled his nose and supposed he should take the opportunity to contribute. He also didn’t want to seem wishy-washy, since Wonwoo was so…decisive. “I’m sorry for asking this, but do you mind playing the first two again?” He pressed his palms together before continuing. “The one with the lyrics seems too much, like, maybe it would be a little too literal? But I’d like to listen to the first two again.”

This time around Wonwoo didn’t provide any commentary. He simply nodded, satisfied with Junhui’s elimination of the final song, and played the songs one after another. It was a no brainer, once Junhui heard them as whole entities instead of focusing on individual elements. The symphonic selection had a very prominent crescendo to its climax, but the cello and piano duet had a really memorable tune that echoed in the vastness of the space even after the notes drifted off, haunting the studio with its melancholic melody.

“That one. It has to be the last one, don’t you think?”

Wonwoo flashed his teeth in a grin, and Junhui’s stomach did that weird dropping out thing that it had been doing a lot recently in anticipation of his response. “Yeah, it’s my favourite too. Save the best for last right?”

Junhui sighed quickly and quietly in relief, feeling like he had passed some kind of test.

“I think it fits the concept best.” He maintained that pleased smile, and Junhui’s stomach remained upside down inside him. “I’ll send you the song so you can have it and use it for the choreography.” Wonwoo’s face returned to its usual neutral expression.

Junhui’s stomach righted itself. “Yeah, uh, how did you want to go about doing that? I’m guessing you also have some ideas for that?”

“I guess you’re right,” Wonwoo said, a little hesitant. “I did do a little thinking. It’s just, I mean I’m sure you’re really good at choreographing. Jihoon told me our styles are pretty similar so we should both work on it.” He rolled one of his ankles in gentle circles as he spoke, looking at Junhui with unerring self-assurance.

His gaze made Junhui starkly aware of his own insecurity, matched up with this star dancer and having nothing to bring to the table in terms of technical skill, leadership, or creativity. He didn’t mind following someone else’s instructions, but it would have been less bruising to his pride if Wonwoo had simply said ‘I do, you follow’ from the outset. Being asked for his input now felt like a concession, or an afterthought. There was a sense that he had entered the elevator on the tenth level, and then been politely asked for his décor preferences just in case, whereas he had thought they’d be building up from the ground floor as a single team.

That feeling could have just stemmed from misplaced self-doubt and Junhui tried to shake off the negativity. “I guess Jihoon forgot to tell you that my dancing’s also shit,” Junhui joked, wringing his hands together and chuckling uncomfortably.

“That seems disingenuous.” Wonwoo narrowed his eyes. “I’m sure you’re a good dancer, Junhui.” The sentence ended in a pause during which Wonwoo’s mouth remained open, and he shut it before he accidentally inserted a ‘-ssi’ after Junhui’s name.

Whatever Junhui expected, it certainly wasn’t that kind of reaction. He ducked his head, and squeezed a knuckle between his thumb and index finger. He dug a nail into the skin, and focused on the pressure. “Sorry. Bad joke. Guess my jokes really are shit.”

Strike out using self-deprecating humour, because that didn’t amuse Wonwoo at all. His lips pursed, and he turned around, looking at his phone to check the time.

“We have the studio for at least another two hours, if not longer.” Wonwoo didn’t bother to address his comment, choosing to change the subject instead. “Since we’re here, we may as well begin our planning.”

Junhui stopped chewing on his upper lip. “Yeah, I guess no one else is usually up to doing stuff for school on the first weekend back to classes. Did you want to meet at this time every week?”

“Are you at all opposed to practicing in the mornings?” Wonwoo asked, turning back around to face him, shoulders spread defensively.

Junhui shook his head quickly. “No, I’m okay with it.”

“In that case, I always have this studio on Saturday mornings, so we can start with just these time slots, and closer to the performance, we can talk the teachers into allowing us extra rehearsal time in one of the stage-sized rooms with the tape markings on the floor.”

“You _always_ have this studio on Saturday mornings?” Junhui repeated, perplexed, with his jaw hung open in disbelief. That made it sound like he owned the school, or something.

Teachers must have really liked him to give him his own studio space at a set time. _Really_ the star dancer of the school then. If he was given special treatment, it was inevitable that he’d be better than the other students, since he was given a better environment.

If Junhui hadn’t felt downtrodden already, he was definitely defeated now. He simply wasn’t on the same level as Wonwoo, and he wanted to give up before he started trying.

“Ever since we started high school I’ve been b—” Wonwoo stopped and gave him an odd look. “Wait, before you came here, didn’t you check the studio sheet?” He rubbed the side of his nose. “Never mind. Let’s just start.”

Junhui didn’t think he could do anything collaboratively with Wonwoo just then, so he quickly blurted out a different proposal on the spot. “Why don’t we put the song on repeat and work through some ideas, and then share at the end to put things together?”

Wonwoo blinked owlishly at him, and reached the finger on his nose up to tap his temple. “I was thinking we could—” He shook his head. “Alright, let’s do it your way.”

It took Junhui a little longer to get started, being less familiar with the piece than Wonwoo was. Wonwoo had immediately started moving as soon as the first notes of the piano rang out, but Junhui tuned him out to focus on his own ideas. His first step was to rummage through his stuff for a pencil and his notebook. There were several key moments that he identified as requiring a highlight element, and then another few which were interesting rhythmically. He noted down the repeated parts of the music, and blocked out the nearly seven-minute song into individual sections, with brief cue notes jotted for each one. Since the cello motif was so simple yet beautiful, he prioritized coming up with an appropriate sequence of steps that would be as memorable as the music.

When it was nearly noon, they reconvened near the front of the studio, and Junhui sat backwards in the teacher’s chair to watch what Wonwoo had put together. It was impressive, as always, and Junhui appreciated the fact that the two separate 16 counts of dance seemed to have a unifying feeling. Despite being really good at them, Wonwoo didn’t pack his choreography with tricks, didn’t have choppy elements without any flow or transitions. There were places for the audience to breathe, and his port de bras was delicate enough to contrast the sharper movements of his legs pleasantly.

Junhui clapped quietly when he was finished, patting just his fingers together and smiling encouragingly. Other than the fact that a lot of the sequences were most contained to one space, he really didn’t have anything negative to say about what he had witnessed.

Wonwoo lifted the corners of his lips quickly before asking, “So…what do you have?”

“Oh!” Junhui exclaimed, oddly breathless. “Well the first thing I did was draw out all the musical phrasing so we can put together our parts and make sure they fit together, kind of like a story board?” He flipped back to the right page in his notebook and shoved it toward Wonwoo, who gingerly stepped closer to take it from Junhui’s hands without letting their fingers brush and investigated the writing himself.

“That’s…useful.” Wonwoo turned the page over and squinted at Junhui’s writing.

“There’s mostly just notes there, if you flip another page, here. I have some formation and movement patterns we can use? There’s only two of us so it’s not that complicated, but I think that makes it more important that we use as much of the space as possible.”

Wonwoo glanced at him with his chin tilted upward, gaze tearing away from Junhui’s notebook. “Oh. Yeah, okay. Did you have any choreography as well or just notes?”

“Um, well, I was trying to think of something for the theme in terms of port de bras, but didn’t come up with any good arm movements?” Junhui was sheepish but didn’t think it was a big deal. It was only the first week, they had a lot of time to work on things.

Wonwoo looked at him again, the set of his mouth neutral, eyes narrow and sly like a cat waiting to pounce as they opened and closed. Junhui felt his blood turn to ice in his veins from that expression, cold and vacant, all turned to focus on him. A need to explain himself and prove his worth bubbled up and rose from this chest. “I’ll definitely work on some stuff for next week?”

Wonwoo was already turning away.

The sound system made a loud blaring ring when Wonwoo unplugged his phone and it caused both of them to wince and flinch at the same time, elbows knocking into each other as their hands flew to cover their ears. Junhui shivered, probably from the draft from the windows blowing over the cooling sweat on his skin. That kind of grating noise was a pretty good summary of how the entire session had gone, Junhui thought miserably, thinking about the friction that remained between them.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“And _then_ he looked at me like I was utter garbage for trying to organize my thoughts instead of actually coming up with any real movements.” Junhui waved his hands as he spoke, seated on the floor even though there was a perfectly good armchair for him to use. His English notes were sprawled around him, the writing in his notebook neat, but the cue cards he was memorizing vocabulary off messy. He had been punctuating his thoughts by knocking his head against the wall behind him and making loud smacking noises by slapping the index cards against his palm.

Minghao spun around in a circle on his chair, functions homework abandoned, and calmly watched Junhui stand, shuffle his books into one pile with his feet, and flit about restlessly in Minghao’s room. He didn’t say anything, having the experience and patience to know that the easiest course of action was to let Junhui talk himself out.

“That’s all he did!” Junhui flung his hands outward as he paced, nearly sending a pencil flying as he worked himself up. He whirled on Minghao once before turning back to the bookshelf he was now investigating. “Didn’t say a word, just stared at me blankly, and I’m frankly certain that God does not exist, or if He does, He’s a cruel asshole for not letting me dissolve into a puddle on the ground and instead forcing me to look back at Jeon Wonwoo.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad. How was your last rehearsal together? I mean the first time you work with someone, there’s bound to be a little friction, right? That’s probably not as informative or predictive as the times after that.” It dawned on Minghao that Junhui seemed to be whining about the situation he was placed in rather than getting angry at Wonwoo himself.

“I really don’t want to talk about that. I can’t even think about it. I’ve almost managed to wipe all my memories about that day from my head.” He squeezed his eyes shut and reluctantly peeked at Minghao, who stared back expectantly. Junhui sulked, and said in a rush, “Basically, Mingyu came by at the end to grab his birthday present and I had him in a headlock but he managed to flip me onto my back and Wonwoo just pointed at me with a single finger and _laughed_. He laughed at me!”

For about a second, Minghao managed to maintain his composure and hold his solemn look for his friend. It dissolved into wheezing laughter quickly, when he imagined the sight. “You’re trained in martial arts! How could he have—?” The rest was cut off as Minghao continued to laugh, hands clutched at his sides. He nearly toppled out of his chair and Junhui scowled.

“Look he just caught me by surprise, okay? I thought I had already won, also Mingyu is like really tall, it took some effort to pull him down—stop laughing! Stop it! It’s not funny, I don’t need you to be laughing at me too!” Junhui kicked Minghao’s knee half a dozen times until Minghao put his palms up and took a deep breath. He choked down another giggle, and nodded.

“Alright, alright, sorry. Wait, but if that happened at the end, how did the actual practice go?”

The strength of the sigh Junhui let out nudged the corner of a sheet of paper. “I basically can’t take a break. Every time I stop moving it’s like his eyes are whispering the word ‘lazy’ at me.”

“Eyes can’t whisper,” Minghao pointed out helpfully.

“If they could talk, his would be ranting about everything wrong with me, I’m sure. But it’s also just because he keeps seeing me at my worst. I mean, you’ve never seen Mingyu pin me down because that’s like not a thing that happens, and no one would ever expect otherwise. For some reason I’m always fucking things up around him.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sure he was trying to laugh with you rather than at you,” Minghao consoled, choking back another fit of giggles.

Junhui shook his head and suddenly held up a small picture frame. He wedged it under Minghao’s nose with alarming speed and force. Minghao backed up and rolled his chair over Junhui’s foot by accident.

“Ow! Jesus, you’re as hyper as a puppy. Stop moving around so much,” Junhui instructed. Minghao rolled his eyes as Junhui rubbed his foot on the back of his calf. Before Minghao could scathingly inform Junhui that he was the one being restless, there was more movement under Minghao’s nose as Junhui’s finger tapped on the glass. “Is this guy the one you’re always talking about? The one who was your best friend in China?”

Minghao took the picture frame from him, and studied the photograph of him, a few years younger, with the arm of a young man wearing a deep blue sweater slung around his shoulders. They were standing at the top of a small mountain, with mostly trees in the background. Minghao had an arm raised high above his head, fingers folded into a ‘V’. There was a smudge now, just underneath their faces, where Junhui’s finger had been pressed. Minghao wiped at it with the sleeve of his shirt. He didn’t remember who took the photo, but it must have been a stranger to get such an amiable shot. “Do you think I only had one friend in China or something? This one wasn’t my best friend, you know what he looks like. You’ve seen pictures of Bojing on my phone, do they look the same to you?”

Junhui shrugged. “Just because I’ve seen his face once doesn’t mean I’d remember what he looks like.” Minghao snorted but he had turned around already, and was now focused on the three other picture frames perched on Minghao’s windowsill, just behind his desk. “Oooh wait are one of these guys him then?”

Once was putting it out of context. First, Junhui had been in his room enough times to have seen the photograph. Second, the camera roll thing may have only happened once, but Junhui had swiped Minghao’s phone and laid on his bed scrolling for hours over the pictures Minghao had taken in China, asking Minghao about each person in the photos, and holding the phone far away whenever Minghao tried to get it back. Eventually Minghao had given up, too tired of having his face squashed by Junhui’s hand, and quietly muttered as many stories of China as he could, his voice forced into being even and steady as he thought about his happiest memories.

Not that Junhui would ever admit it, but Minghao suspected that it was his way of trying to make him less homesick and lonely. Oddly enough, it had worked.

“He’s on the dresser, as if you don’t already know,” Minghao snapped, quickly putting back each of the picture frames into their usual spots. There was a picture of his middle school graduating class, all of them wearing performance outfits of some kind or another, that had been taken after their final showcase. It seemed like a long time ago now, but that was probably the physical distance affecting his perception of time.

With a ringing laugh, Junhui picked up the picture of Minghao and Bojing sitting together. “‘He’s on the dresser,’ like there’s a physical human being sitting on top of your furniture,” Junhui teased. He investigated the image carefully, not for the first time, with a wistful smile.

“This is very cute. How come we don’t have pictures like this together? I wanna be on your dresser too!” He turned around to pout at Minghao, who was having none of it.

“Because we’re not friends,” Minghao said as matter-of-factly as he could without laughing.

Junhui gave him a wounded look. “What?! But I’m so good to you! Why don’t you feel the same way about me, Xiao Hao?” He had put down the photograph and both his index fingers were pressed against his cheeks, pulling down at the skin to emphasize his frown.

“Don’t ever call me that again.” He frowned. “You’re more like an annoying older brother. Now that I think about it, you’d make a terrible best friend. You’d probably go around telling everyone all my deepest darkest secrets to embarrass me as your idea of fun. Every time I told you I was upset about something you’d tell everyone to come make fun of me for it.” Minghao shook his head, just imagining it. “No, I think I’ll keep you where you are now, at an arm’s length away.”

He squawked when Junhui pounced on him to pull him into a headlock, knuckles digging into his skull while Junhui yelled, “Why you—!” There was a battle while Minghao attempted to free himself, gulping for air while laughing, as Junhui tried to drag him backward and pin him to the ground.

Their play fighting only ended because they both got too tired from holding each other down, able to predict each other’s next course of action, and both strong enough and familiar enough with martial arts techniques that there was little more than vice like grips preventing both of them from moving. The truce was decided wordlessly, simultaneously, and they panted heavily as they laid on the floorboards, staring blankly up at the ceiling lamp with grins on their faces.

“See? This is why we can’t be friends.” Minghao turned his head to stare at Junhui’s side profile.

“What why?” Junhui whined. He pouted at the ceiling.

“Ugh, gross! Don’t try to act cute. Were you like this with your best friend in China?” He wrinkled his nose. “Wait, I don’t think you’ve ever even told me his name.”

Junhui laughed, but didn’t turn to look at Minghao. His mind was far away, picturing the stillness of the air just moments before the clouds unleashed a torrential downpour. Mingming’s name wasn’t one that he wanted to speak. “Don’t worry,” he said eventually, attempting to keep his tone as light as possible, “you needn’t be jealous. He.” Junhui paused and cleared his throat. “Anyway,” he said a little too loudly, “there’s no competition, you’re way cuter.”

Minghao clapped his hands triumphantly. “So this person does exist!” He turned his head back around to stare at the ceiling and brought his arms up to pillow the back of his head against his hands. “I was beginning to think that you didn’t have any friends in China and that was why you’re so terrible with acting normal. How did you manage to trick all of us into tolerating you enough to hang around?” Minghao smirked and looked over again, covering the side of his waist pre-emptively for the imminent poking that was sure to happen.

There was silence and stillness on the other end, as Junhui’s lingering smile from their bout of wrestling slipped from his face.

Junhui swallowed, opened his mouth, tongue darting out from between his teeth before he closed his eyes against the blinding light above them. Minghao watched and waited but Junhui didn’t physically lash out at him for the teasing jibe. The longer the quiet hung in the air between them, the more discomfited both of them felt.

Eventually Junhui shrugged his shoulder and forced out a dry chuckle. “Did you mean to ask how was I fooled into tolerating your cheeky presence? I should hit you more often for the complete lack of respect you have for your elders, honestly.” It was a weak joke, but a joke nonetheless.

Well, that was weird. The awkwardness dissipated only a little from that recovery, and Minghao jumped on the playful tone, eager to get away from whatever he said that caught Junhui off-guard. It wasn’t like Junhui didn’t know he was joking about having to tolerate him, right? Minghao snorted and patted his own hair with an air of superiority. “Because I’m cute, obviously. Well, I guess we’ve come full circle.”

“Yeah, I suppose your adorableness is at the centre of the universe.” Junhui sighed exaggeratedly and shook his head. “You’ll have to phone back five hundred years and tell Copernicus he was wrong.”

“Won’t that be embarrassing for the scientific community?” Minghao hummed, and grinned at Junhui, eyes wide.

Junhui finally turned to look back at him, and the laughter he let out was natural this time. “If I win the Nobel prize with the paper I publish from this finding, I promise to buy you a present.” He picked at a loose thread on the hem of his sweater. “Anyway…I mean, there’s no way any of them would feel even a tenth of how embarrassing it is to work with Wonwoo, honestly.” His eyes narrowed and he looked to Minghao like he was about to start ranting about Wonwoo having had the song choice and _obviously_ being better equipped to start choreographing than Junhui again.

There was only so much complaining Minghao could handle in one night.

Before Junhui could get started, he cut in with, “You know, I have a question for you. Why have you become so easily embarrassed?” Junhui stuck his tongue out at him and Minghao sighed, covering Junhui’s face with one hand. “I’m speaking seriously! You’ve never acted embarrassed about anything in front of me, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that you felt that way in front of anyone else either. In fact, I’ve always thought of you as the hyung with absolutely no shame. What’s gotten into you lately?”

“He just keeps getting under my skin!” It wasn’t a recency thing as much that it was directly tied to one person – Wonwoo. “It’s so weird, like he’s judging me, but doing so under the guise of being non-judgemental? If it were outright disdain like Jihoon, or total insolence like you, it’d be fine but…Hey wait, I totally have shame!”

Minghao tsked gently, and helped Junhui collect his pencil, highlighters, and eraser to place back into his pencil case. As usual, their study session had devolved into…not studying. “So slow on the uptake, hyung.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever. My aging process has sped up to be ten times as quick as it should be because of all the stress you give me, brat.” Junhui shoved all of his stuff into his bag and gave a final flick to Minghao’s forehead.

“Old man.”

Something else dawned on Junhui as he was leaving, something which forced him to turn around abruptly and startled Minghao. “Wait a second. Wait. I also just realized, do you mean to say you have deep dark secrets you _haven’t_ told me?”

Minghao made a terribly unattractive noise and pushed Junhui out of his room. One of Junhui’s arms flailed and gripped onto the doorframe. Minghao quickly grabbed for the handle and pushed at the door until Junhui could no longer hang on without dislocating his elbow. He heaved a loud sigh when he finally heard the click and turned the lock, leaning against the door in relief.

“I’ll needle it out of you, Xu Minghao, don’t think I’ll forget this!” Junhui’s shout beyond the wall startled him into jumping away from the door. Minghao shook his head, laughing.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

In the ensuing weeks it had become routine for Junhui to arrive always a few minutes before their agreed time, but always after Wonwoo had already finished warming up. It never made sense to Junhui that regardless of what time they decided to meet, Wonwoo would start beforehand. If he wanted to begin warm ups at 8:30, then they could have discussed meet then and warmed up together. But even when Junhui suggested arriving at an earlier time, Wonwoo simply showed up in advance, again, leaving Junhui to rush through some barre exercises alone while Wonwoo watched, again.

Wonwoo always watched him, face betraying none of his emotions, as he practiced things they were working on in their classes. Whether it was out of the corner of his sight, or through the reflection in the mirror, or simply dead on, his eyes were fixed on the lines of Junhui’s arms and legs as he bent and stretched each joint and muscle. It was nerve-wracking, and if looks could speak, it always seemed as if Wonwoo’s eyes were glaring daggers into him. Logically, Junhui could rationalize that any criticisms levelled at him really had no basis anymore, not since he doubled down on working outside of their rehearsal times. Yet he still felt chastised each time Wonwoo looked down his nose at him, chin pointed up in that infuriatingly way of his that always made Junhui feel small and insignificant.

Minghao’s voice kept reverberating in Junhui’s head, but he was still at a loss about why he cared so much about Wonwoo’s opinion. It didn’t make sense. What made Wonwoo different? The irrationality only made the itch underneath his fingertips worse, and he adjusted his shoulder blades each time the thought flashed through his mind.

At least they both had something vaguely resembling choreography, at this point. Even if the fragments were still pretty short and far from cohesive.

“Did you want to do anything else across the floor or are you warm enough?” Wonwoo asked, after Junhui had gone through a quick series of soubresauts, jumping forward in fifth to get his toes, the balls of his feet, and his ankles limber, thighs and calves springy and ready for action. He was loose enough, and his skin was giving off just enough heat to feel cosy without sweating. After lifting each leg separately to crack his hips and arching to hear the comforting crackle in his lower back, Junhui nodded his head and joined Wonwoo near the center of the studio.

Today Wonwoo had been working on cabrioles again. His grand battement position in the air when doing singles was nearly as high as Junhui’s leg when he was doing grands battements at the barre. The beat of his jumping leg against the back of his calf was precise and heavy, the sound of shin hitting calf a quick and sharp noise like a single loud flutter of sound waves in the air. There weren’t any cabrioles in the choreography Wonwoo had shown him yet, and Junhui wondered what the point was. It seemed a little like a waste of time, especially considering all the cold looks he had received in the past few weeks when it came to productivity.

“Are you still working on the repeated motif? Should we run through what we have and then go over it with music, see how it looks?” Junhui suggested. He was still rolling his ankles and had one hand on his neck. Wonwoo nodded, pulling one arm across his shoulders to stretch his deltoids as he walked over to play the music.

They fiddled around individually during the first run of the song, and Junhui, oblivious to whatever Wonwoo was doing, let out an exasperated sigh. He was still having trouble with coming up with something that felt right for the melody, and wasn’t any closer to figuring out what would feel right than last week. He spent days thinking about it during every waking hour, and then more days not thinking about it at all in an attempt to let his ideas flow, but still nothing he did looked the way the music seemed like it should be represented. The stagnation was quickly turning into frustration at this point, because it had taken so long, but also because it was such an important section that he didn’t feel like he could move on until he got it right. Junhui stared at himself in the mirror, and cursed the fact that all his creativity seemed to be zapped into a locked away box whenever he was in the same room as Wonwoo.

Perhaps it looked weird because he was doing too much? What if he took out the step in beforehand, and left just the large swooping arc of his leg, foot hugging the ground as it made a semi-circle following his range of motion. The side bend he could keep, and if it were just the port de bras, it didn’t look quite so busy. A motif that only featured movement of his arms, repeated over and over, seemed a little sparse. At the same time, the later repetitions had some musical alterations, and it could be a good movement to build on, with additional steps for the busier section.

During the next run-through, when they were presenting their choreography together in an approximate formation of what they planned for the actual performance, Junhui expanded on the promising idea with an ending cambré. He lunged into the side bend with some force, before raising up on his toes with the strength of his calves, elevated in an arabesque with his foot held behind his torso, way above the level of his head, his back arched to support the position easily.

Junhui had a bendy back, but also really strong core muscles, and normally could have held that position for minutes, maybe even with his eyes closed. With engaged abs, once he found his centre of balance, it only became tiring to hold if he was up there too long. He was startled out of it, however, by the music stopping all of a sudden.

As he dropped his leg, Junhui turned to look at Wonwoo, who was rubbing both eyes with the palms of his hands.

“This isn’t working,” Wonwoo said quietly. He looked and sounded tired, rather than angry or even sad. It surprised Junhui that he was able to differentiate those emotions in Wonwoo, when his face was always mostly solemn.

“What, exactly, isn’t working?” Junhui asked. His voice was a little sharper than he had intended, and his hands were on his hips as he spoke. The hostility of the way he carried himself wasn’t lost on him, but he was a little on edge, hackles raised and teeth sharp at the undercurrent of being accused of doing wrong.

Wonwoo met his eyes and waved one hand in a circular gesture that indicated something encompassing the entire room. His other hand was still covering half his face, as if he couldn’t muster the energy to remove it. “All of it. Have you watched us in the mirror? It’s really incoherent, and we look extremely jarring juxtaposed the way we are.”

Junhui’s eyes roamed from one corner of the studio to the other before returning to meet Wonwoo’s gaze. He raised one eyebrow. “What do you want to do about it? Start over? Is it because we’re doing different things, or is the choreography itself bad?” Junhui felt a brief twinge of guilt at not paying attention to what Wonwoo was doing, too caught up in his own dancing, but shoved it aside to jut his jaw out and stand his ground.

“Ugh.” Wonwoo’s hands were rubbing his face again, this time pushing his hair back as he sighed. A few strands caught on the rings around the bases of both his middle fingers, falling slower than the rest dramatically, as if he were filming a shampoo commercial. “I wish we started out working together instead of trying to piece together two separate dances. I did say that was what I was thinking of but I guess—”

“Actually, you didn’t say anything of the sort,” Junhui contested scathingly. The hands on his hips were now crossed over his chest, and he stood with his feet slightly apart. It was one thing to criticize the piece as a whole that they’d both contributed to, but to suggest that if they had done everything Wonwoo’s way when he hadn’t fully shared his plan was too much. “I clearly remember you agreed to—”

“Whatever!” Wonwoo said harshly, dropping his hands to land with a ringing noise against the sides of his legs. His eyes weren’t expressionless anymore, the lines on his forehead and around his nose folded harshly with anger. He drew himself up to his full height and shook his head vehemently. “We don’t have time for this!”

Junhui had never heard Wonwoo’s low-pitched voice yell before. It sounded like a lion roar, one that Wonwoo pointedly tried to dull as he continued speaking.

“We’re a month into the semester, and we’ve gotten nowhere, honestly, there’s no point in arguing, and we don’t have time to just scrap everything we’ve been working on.” One of his hands came back up to rub at his temples, like trying to stay calm was physically hurting him.

Junhui rolled his eyes and flared his nostrils. His tone was clipped and dismissive as he snapped, “Han-saem told us we were one of the furthest ahead of any of the dance groups this year, so it’s fine!” The two of them met with the program advisor last week, and were told they were one of the few groups who had gotten a move on and chosen music, much less meet up. They really had started early compared to the others, and sure they’d lose ground if they changed gears, but it was Wonwoo who brought up the fact that their current approach wasn’t effective in the first place.

“What, are you always going to compare yourself to people who are doing worse than you? Why wouldn’t you think about the people who are even further ahead than us? What about the non-dance groups? Why would you set your standards low? Does it make you feel good to sit back on your heels and achieve those low expectations? Is raising your ideals too much to ask?” Wonwoo was biting the questions out at a rapid-fire rate, one hand around his waist, the other making accusing jabs toward Junhui’s direction. His tone was sarcastic and bitter, and being patronized was a sure fire way to get Junhui defensive, rather than open to other people’s thoughts and feelings.

Junhui couldn’t help raising his voice when he tried to defend himself. “Well, I guess you pointing out flaws is your definition of ‘raising your ideals’ but how does that help us if you don’t want to follow through with the only plan that can fix things? You’re the one who was saying there’s no point in arguing but getting all hostile. It’s not like we have to give up every idea we’ve already thought of, and it’s not like there isn’t, there aren’t plenty of months left! We just have to work past this bump in the road, and take things one step at a time. There’s no point worrying about some unknown future! Either we suck it up and deal with what we have now or you agree to change, you can’t have both!”

Wonwoo didn’t let him finish before starting to wring his hands and shouting over the last of Junhui’s arguments. “Take things one step at a time? Are you kidding me right now? Why aren’t you more worried? How can you always be so laid back and carefree? We have marks riding on this! Don’t you want to look good in front of your classmates?”

Junhui jumped on that with all the spite of a vicious cat. “Why do you care so much about what other people think? Shouldn’t the dance be, first and foremost, a project belonging to our group?” Wasn’t that rich, considering how much Junhui had cared about Wonwoo’s opinion maybe all of two minutes ago.

“Yeah that’s the real problem isn’t it? We have to work as a group! And we’re clearly not doing that, we’re just two strangers in the same room doing completely separate things!” Wonwoo abandoned keeping his voice in check, his screaming vaguely terrifying to Junhui.

They stood, staring at each other, chests heaving and breaths short more from yelling at each other than any of the physical exercise they had been doing prior to their shouting match. Wonwoo’s eyebrows were drawn together, his eyes cold and mouth flattened into a thin straight line. Junhui stared back with eyes blown wide, his lips parted in disbelief. He held that pose, unblinking, not sure there was anything left to say. The tension, he supposed, had been building to this point since the moment they first spoke to each other, both of them keeping their real thoughts and feelings to themselves for the sake of a smooth and courteous working environment.

It was Wonwoo who moved first, his gaze shifting downward slightly, and he made an aborted attempt to grab at the air before both of them simultaneously turned around, Wonwoo to get his phone, Junhui to march straight out the door.

He carried his bag with one hand and shoved his feet, still wearing the canvas slippers, into his street shoes, not bothering to get dressed before trekking between buildings. Not until after he had slammed the dorm door shut and slid to the floor of his room, heart still pounding, did he realize he was supposed to feel cold in the cool April air with nothing more than a leotard on.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

The impact of his shoulder against the door made a loud ‘thunk’ as Junhui let himself in without so much as a knock. Soonyoung and Jihoon broke apart quickly, jumping back to look up and see who it was who had interrupted them. Jihoon’s shoulders relaxed when he realized it was just Junhui, and he allowed Soonyoung one more kiss to his cheekbone before pushing him back to get started on reviewing.

It wasn’t particularly unusual for Junhui to finish all the assigned exercises and readings in their textbooks first, but he normally spent more time in Jihoon’s room with sprawled on the floor memorizing and practicing problem sets until he got too tired to keep his eyes open, ignoring Jihoon and Soonyoung’s antics so that he wouldn’t feel like a third wheel.

Since the argument in the studio, however, Junhui had accumulated a lot of pent up energy that was being released through very aggressive studying at superhuman speeds. Before Soonyoung lost focus and started to bug Jihoon to entertain him in increasingly greasy tones, Junhui was already finished with all of his subjects, and had shoved his face into Jihoon’s pillow, lying on the bed with his stomach against the mattress. Soonyoung tossed a balled up scrap of paper at him to check that Junhui was still alive, and upon receiving a grunt, was satisfied enough to go back to what he was doing.

The extra space cleared from the ground meant that others could also join them and have room to sit. Seungkwan and Seokmin knocked on the door together, sometime after nine, twin mischievous grins on their faces as they poked their heads in.

“Hyung-deul, come play~” Seokmin sang out, and Seungkwan spontaneously harmonized with him in a lovely and resonant major third.

“Damn vocal majors, always singing wherever you go,” Jihoon complained, but he was dragging both of them into the room by the ear. “What would it look like if I danced down the hallway between class and the cafeteria? It’s the same when you sing in the bathrooms, fuckers.” Despite shooting Soonyoung a dark look, Jihoon seemed resigned to the fact that he wouldn’t be able to kick all of them out. Especially when Soonyoung started tugging on his sleeve and pouted at him to ask if he could take a break from studying.

“Do whatever the hell you want. It’s your grades on the line, not mine,” Jihoon said, shaking his head and going back to the contrapuntal composition exercise on his desk. He filled in chords while humming to himself, roman numerals beneath the staves and eyes sharply attuned to watch for parallel fifths or octaves. He didn’t turn to mutter, “Do you even realize you’re about to graduate and have to think about university? Such a kid,” under his breath, eyes still glued to the paper in front of him. But at least part of attention was on the racket behind him, because he didn’t speak until after Soonyoung was distracted by the card game Seungkwan and Seokmin were proposing.

The game seemed to involve a lot of slapping cards down with excessive vigour, screaming loudly, and climbing over each other when someone lost a round in order to give them punishment slaps to the back. This only resulted in more shrieking from the losing party, which Jihoon diligently tried to ignore with the help of noise-isolating headphones. Junhui also did not rouse at the commotion the game was causing, but he certainly hadn’t fallen asleep, the noise of their excitement carrying too loudly for someone to be relaxed in their presence. He was busy thinking and trying not to think at the same time, the nervous thrum in heart pumping icily through his veins.

Somehow, a Soonyoung’s voice was able to overwhelm all the bellowing and cut through the din. “No, we’re not playing this again, it’s totally rigged or you two are cheating! Just because I’m older than you, doesn’t mean you can gang up on me!”

Seungkwan snickered, and Seokmin immediately tried to soothe Soonyoung’s nerves with his smile and placating pats on the shoulder. “Maybe you’re just bad at the game,” Seungkwan said with a shrug. That set Soonyoung off all over again, and it took Jihoon taking off his headphones, standing, walking over, and placing the palm of his hand over Soonyoung’s head for him to calm again.

“Okay,” Jihoon said sweetly, swiveling around to pin Seungkwan and Seokmin with a dangerous smile and piercing eyes, “You three will now find something quieter and involving less movement to entertain yourselves for the next two hours, and leave me to finish working on my homework, and Junhui to continue dying in peace. Otherwise, you’re going to _all_ leave immediately and never come back again.”

Soonyoung scratched at the underside of Jihoon’s chin with a grateful smile on his face, eyes crinkled happily at the support. Jihoon jerked his head away and returned to his seat with deliberate steps, not bothering to see if his ultimatum was received. He’d deliver on it, regardless of whether they understood his words, or how serious he was. Trying to graduate with three concentrations of subject required him to complete a lot more work than the already busy third years, and he was stressed and sleep deprived. Soonyoung was pretty good at figuring out the limits of his patients, and normally didn’t test him, but once in a while, he still needed a firmly worded reminder.

Seokmin looked properly chastised, and rubbed the back of his neck with the side of his fingers. “Let’s just watch something on hyung’s laptop, we could catch up on episodes we’ve missed because of classes.”

“No anime!” Seungkwan protested, voice rising and Seokmin stuck a finger over his lips.

“Okay, okay, I got it, we can do a different cartoon, maybe _Rick and Morty_?”

“There’s three of us though, how are we going to be able to share earphones for this?” Seungkwan whispered, aware of how loud his voice could get when he wasn’t paying attention.

Soonyoung squished his lips together at the side of his face, thinking of a solution. “It’s okay. We’ll just keep the volume low from the speakers. I mean, it’s not like we understand the English they’re saying anyway, and if you’re gonna read the subs, you don’t have to hear every word that comes out of their mouth.”

He received a shrug of the shoulders and a nod in agreement from Seokmin. Seungkwan put up a fight for a few minutes longer. “You don’t know me or my English language abilities. I speak English very well. I can understand everything they’re talking about without subtitles!” Soonyoung very slowly pushed the back of Seungkwan’s head until his face was pressed into the floor to get him to shut up.

“Hm, did you hear something, Seokmin-ah? It sounded like something or someone was talking…” Soonyoung turned and tapped at his chin with one finger.

“Oh no, hyung, you must’ve been hearing things,” Seokmin said, playing along. He jostled their elbows together, eyebrows dancing.

Seungkwan pretended to spit dirt and dust from his mouth and levelled both of them with a frown. “Ugh, I wish Jeonghan-hyung hadn’t graduated, he was the only one of you who wasn’t despicably mean to me.”

Soonyoung tilted his head sideways and let his eyes slide over to where Junhui had previously been lying down, but was suddenly half-upright, weight on his elbows as he fixed his gaze on Seungkwan. He and Jihoon made eye contact briefly, and Soonyoung lifted his chin, jerking his head sideways before both their gazes converged on Junhui once more. Soonyoung raised one of his eyebrows in question and Junhui shook his head quickly. He mouthed ‘It’s fine,’ before laying back down face first into the pillows. Soonyoung pursed his lips and lifted a shoulder minutely. Jihoon’s mouth was drawn tight as well, and he threw down his pencil with a sigh, getting up to sit beside Junhui on the bed and running his fingers through his hair.

Junhui really did fall asleep after that, the rhythmic and surprisingly gentle movement of Jihoon’s fingers calming down his heart beat, letting the voices of the characters becoming white noise when he closed his eyes, dreams filled with snatches of legs in tights during pirouettes, physics equations, and someone’s long hair splayed all over his thighs.

He was roused again when Jihoon shook his shoulder, the only light in the room coming from the desk lamp, and a strange quietness now that everyone else was gone.

“What time is it?” Junhui slurred, lifting his face off the pillow. It was a miracle he was able to breathe. He sat upright, blindly searching for his pens as he stifled a yawn with one hand.

“Time to go back to your own room,” Jihoon said quietly, collecting Junhui’s notebooks together and holding them out for him.

Junhui picked them up and held them to his chest, his pencil and eraser going into his jacket pocket. “Thanks. Sorry I crashed. Is Soonyoung gone too?”

Jihoon nodded. “He’ll be back later, if you need him, but I kind of hinted he should shepherd the youngguns out before you woke up.” He was still sitting on the bed beside Junhui, although all of his notebooks were now balanced on his knees, probably having transferred his stuff while Junhui was asleep. That was unnecessary, he could have gone back to his desk, Junhui wasn’t lying when he said it was fine.

Junhui scooted backwards on the bed, hands tucked around his things still, his socked feet dangling off the edge of the mattress, a little way off the ground. The smile he gave Jihoon in thanks was wobbly at best.

“The good thing about you is that at least you’re now quiet,” Jihoon joked softly, head bowed. “I mean, are things alright? You’ve been kind of…not low energy, but very low in mood this week. And I know that Seungkwan brought up…a kind of taboo subject.”

“You probably love that,” Junhui snorted, “less trouble in your hands right?” The laughter quickly dried up in his chest and he sighed. “It’s fine. I don’t know what I’m holding onto. Maybe I like pretending to be miserable for the attention.”

“Don’t. I was there. I don’t know what happened but I know what you looked like in the aftermath and it wasn’t…” Jihoon grimaced, his hands clenched. “No one can pretend to be that unhappy. Don’t say things like that like you’re giving up information about yourself when you mean it to lead me off the trail.”

Junhui inhaled slowly, caught in his own lie. Slowly, he said, “Okay, maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not pretending, but at this point, that whole thing, well, it’s not a thing anymore. I’m pretty sure it’s just psychological, like I’ve conditioned myself to react adversely to his name or something.”

“Mm. If it’s not a thing anymore, does that mean you’re ready to talk about it?” Jihoon looked away, picking at a seam in the bedding in an attempt to be as nonchalant as possible.

“Hm.” He stalled, thinking for a moment of how to encompass everything in only a sentence or two. “I think, in the loosest of terms, that you were right about me.” Junhui shrugged and tilted his head back. “That I can commit only to food and not people.”

Jihoon didn’t press further, although that answer left him with more questions than answers. It was weird to think of Yoon Jeonghan as Icarus, when hyung was so much more like the sun. “Okay. And does your inability to let people get close without things going up in flames have anything to do with your current moping?”

He half-expected a joke, or at the very least a protest from Junhui that he wasn't moping.

What he hadn’t expected was for Junhui to draw in on himself, lowering his head and his gaze, pulling all his limbs together in a tight ball to get straight to the heart of the matter with a tiny and terrified voice.

“No, it’s worse. I think Wonwoo hates me.”

“Ahh.” He swung his feet and cleared his throat. Jihoon thought about purposely kicking Junhui’s ankle but aborted the attempt. “Group project not going smoothly, I take it?” He kept his voice as light as he could, given the atmosphere.

Junhui shook his head morosely. “We got into a yelling match the last time we saw each other, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to respond.” His voice got even smaller as his eyelids flickered closed. “Should I apologize?” He shuddered. “Should I just show up at the next rehearsal and act like nothing happened? I’m starting to get anxious wondering what’ll happen. It’s like he’s always seeing me not do the right thing...”

“Hmm…” Jihoon reached out an arm, and let it drop, looking at his own hand with confusion, like it had been moving of its own accord and he didn’t know why. This comforting people thing really was Soonyoung’s domain. “You know, even when you’re being annoying, I’ve never not liked you. You’re, very regrettably speaking, quite endearing. Wonwoo’s not the type of person to hate someone on sight, anyway. I’m sure he doesn’t hate you.”

“That seems like a pretty low bar,” Junhui moaned. He took a deep breath. “I’m probably the last person he wanted to be partnered up with. Particularly after Soonyoung’s comment, I’ve been trying so hard not to make this go down the same path as what happened with Haeun-sunbaenim, but the more time passes, the more it feels inevitable that I’ll have a disaster on my hands and an entire school ready to chew me out.”

In his head, Jihoon came up with half a dozen ways to kill the fucker. “Soonyoung’s a dick. That’s not going to happen. And even if it does happen, don’t forget that we defended you and Haeun-noona and her friends also ended up defending you, and it’s not the end of the world. You’re still alive now, so you’ll get through this no matter what.”

“The end of the world, even if I survive…” Junhui’s fingers gripped his books tighter. “When the past seniors used to bemoan third year as being equivalent to dying, I always thought they were exaggerating. But here I am, really dying from the amount of studying and practice we have. I’m still slowly trying to piece together choreography when I get a spare second, Meanwhile, Wonwoo is somehow allowed to have his own rehearsal studio to come up with his parts at the speed of light, and he spends all of his time there, completely unfazed by school.”

“Hold on, you know you can book studios whenever there aren’t classes as long as you go through admin right? That’s a thing, Junhui, that’s always been a thing.”

Junhui blinked at Jihoon owlishly. “What? You can book studio time? Are you serious? Is that why no one other than me ever seems to complain they don’t have enough space to practice? How come nobody told me?”

“Well, I thought everyone knew. It was announced when we first started school…probably when you were still not that familiar with Korean. I never realized or stopped to think…” He looked at the pained look on Junhui’s face, his profile illuminated by a warm orange glow backlit by the lamp behind him. Jihoon studied that expression for a moment. “Never mind, that wasn’t your point, and now you know. Look, maybe… maybe the key is to try less hard. Less is more and all that, right? Maybe if you focused less on him, you could have come up with something faster. If you focused on doing what you think Wonwoo would perceive as the right thing, and more on just being yourself…I’ll deny saying this if you ever tell anyone else but you’re naturally good at knowing what to do to make other people feel comfortable. Seeing you so out of sorts and _not_ friends with someone is a little unnerving to me.” Jihoon pinched the flesh of Junhui’s arm, digging his nails into the skin until Junhui winced and pulled away.

Junhui was quiet for a long time. Long enough that Jihoon had honestly forgotten half the things he had said, idly toying with the ends of Junhui’s shoulder length hair. “Wonwoo’s just so…” He was quiet again and Jihoon took the time to weigh pros and cons of asking Mingyu to teach him how to braid long hair. He was just warming up to the idea when Junhui started speaking again, voice almost too quiet to hear. “Sorry. I’m sorry for ranting at you for so long. It’s probably awkward for you considering you guys are friends and knowing that he probably has his own opinion of me too that you’re forced to balance.”

“Actually no.” Jihoon waved his hand, mouth downturned slightly. “He never talks about you, or about your project. Come to think of it, it’s kinda weird because he hasn’t really shut up about dancing in general since the start of this semester. It’s also still super weird that all of us know each other but don’t hang out together, honestly.”

“Oh. Well, I appreciate you listening to me complain. And for your suggestions. But I’m too cowardly to propose that kind of interaction.” Junhui slouched and tilted his head, observing him from below at a diagonal angle. “Hey Jihoonie, it’s nice to know that underneath that cold exterior, you’re a little bit of a softie.”

“Moving right along!” Jihoon’s eyes went round and he looked away, clapping his hands together. “Good talk. Let’s never do that again, I’m not an advice dispensary, don’t come back, no matter how much food you have to pay me with next time.” He tossed the pillow on top of Junhui’s pile of things. “Take the goddamn pillow with you, you’ve had your face mashed up against it all night, it’s probably covered in your dirty saliva now. Launder it and bring it back clean, or else.”

“Aww, is our Jihoonie scared of getting cooties?” Junhui cooed, standing to make his way to the door.

Jihoon rolled his eyes before watching him leave. “Wait.” Junhui stopped and looked back at him, eyes warm and inquisitive. Jihoon looked back down and twiddled his thumbs together, watching the nails clack against each other. He opened his mouth again to mumble, “You’re alright, Junhui.” He darted a glance back up to the doorway.

Junhui smiled easily. “Thanks. I think.”

“And,” Jihoon smiled angelically, because it wouldn’t be him if he didn’t get to have the last, stringently acerbic word, “think of it this way. At least the comparison is with Haeun-sunbaenim and we’re not looking at another Jeonghan-hyung-esque disaster.”

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

At 6:30 on a cloudy Saturday morning, Junhui’s alarm went off. The night before he had set it so that he could let himself hit snooze only once before it would become impossible for him to get ready in time for when he wanted to arrive at the school building, and he was cognizant of this fact as he came to. Was it even an option at this point? He didn’t hit snooze. He squeezed his eyes shut and felt around for his phone, groaning when his fingers closed around it. He pulled his elbow back in towards him and scrunched his forehead with effort to force his eyes open. The pale glow surrounding the windows from where light was reflecting off the curtains illuminated his room in a ghostly light. Time to face the day, he supposed, and start working hard, immediately, on learning choreography he had studiously ignored.

After hearing what Jihoon had said, Junhui had approached the administrative offices with trepidation and found that you could, indeed, book studios whenever there was an opening, with the condition that if there was a last minute school-sponsored event, you had to swap out your time slot. Sure enough, when he flipped through the sign-out charts, Wonwoo had penciled his name neatly in the same morning block of time every single Saturday for studio 4B from the start of the term all the way through to summer break. While he was there, Junhui booked a few Sunday mornings in the same studio, thinking they could use some extra time to make up for whatever ground they had lost. On his way back to class he realized that it wasn’t favouritism, after all, nor a case of the rich get richer. That thought left him feeling appropriately guilty for making assumptions when he had no right.

The dorms were eerily silent and still as he put on the coffeemaker. He fiddled with the buttons for a good five minutes, vision still fuzzy from sleepiness, and brain a little hazy. He had always thought that he was the morning person of his friends group but waking up after four hours of sleep on a Saturday wasn’t an experience he was familiar with. It was his own fault that he hadn’t slept earlier, but he had put off the drier parts of the finance and economics textbook for too long and didn’t want to cut himself short during a productive spell. There was that saying, anyway, that if you wanted to get anywhere after high school in South Korea, you weren’t really meant to sleep.

He hummed a little out of key as he got ready in the bathroom, vigorously scrubbing his teeth and gently splashing water over his face before patting it dry with a soft cotton towel. A thick oversized sweater and lounge pants covered his tights and leotard, and he made a note to himself to do laundry when he came back after depositing Jihoon’s pillowcase in his hamper. Back in the communal kitchen, he swallowed down two hard-boiled eggs and washed a small amount of brown rice down with a cup of coffee, black. It warmed him a little, the chill coming through in the early hours, and he held the warm mug with both hands until he was finished. The humming returned while rinsing his dishes, and while the harmony was exciting, he could only voice the melodic lines of the song they had chosen for the project. Over the course of the month, the main tune had become familiar enough that he was hearing snippets of it in his dreams. It was so memorable that it beat out the music from his repertoire, ballet, and modern classes, even though by all rights he heard those songs more often throughout the week. He suspected that by the time they were working with more of the music, he’d be hearing the piano and cello duet on loop in his head, even when it wasn’t playing.

The hallways were still empty after he’d left everything on the drying rack. Junhui swung his bag over his shoulder, slightly more alert because of the coffee, and made his way to the main school building without tripping or stumbling over anything. Like all the weekends prior, the place felt deserted. The light flashed green when he swiped his student card over the security scanner, and as he pushed open the large glass doors, the stillness covered him with a sense of calm. He lifted the fur hood off his head and climbed the stairs, without a hint of being tired or sleepy.

Arriving outside the studio and not spotting a pair of sneakers neatly placed just outside the door was a very novel experience. He relished in it, no matter how silly it seemed, and appreciated placing his shoes against the wall, the first pair in line. Shuffling out of his coat and outerwear, being noisy in general, and hearing the echoes without anyone else there to perceive them gave Junhui a strange sense of power. It was only a dance studio, but he felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, and that he could shout anything he wanted to get it off his chest. Instead of listening to his own voice echo, he popped in his earphones and put on an upbeat playlist for some warm-ups. Being alone in the studio made it seem weird to blast music through the speakers, since no one else needed to hear it.

It was very nice not having to rush through his warm ups. Being able to give each of his joints and muscles the adequate amount of time to limber up and get used to rotation, activating, engaging, and releasing, made him feel much more relaxed and less paranoid about making mistakes. His body obeyed his every command when he treated it nicely like this, adjusting positions, straightening out or turning ever so slightly with barely a thought. Junhui thought being tired or sleep deprived usually made your body less responsive, and your brain less focused, but having proper pre-dance conditioning seemed to mitigate that effect. Anyway, he didn’t need to memorize lengthy choreography if he were coming up with it, and coming up with new choreography would be enormously more organic if his body was this loose.

Not to mention, spending more time in the studio would probably mean that your improvement could be accelerated.

“Guess always being first one to the studio and last one to leave _would_ bring you better results,” Junhui mumbled to the room at large, a little abashed.

His self-deprecating comparisons of their natural talent seemed silly in the face of Wonwoo’s hard work, especially now that he finally understood why Wonwoo was so adamant about arriving early to be warmed up for their time together now. If they could start off each practice already feeling this energized and ready, they would probably maximize what they could accomplish each session.

By the time it was nearly eight, Junhui was in the centre, trying to work out if he could remember anything Wonwoo had been working on for the past several weeks. He figured if he started trying out those movements, he could learn whatever choreography that was already created faster, and they could get to unifying their dance in shorter time. Time. In prior weeks, this would be around the time Junhui finally staggered out of bed, groggy and annoyed with the world at large, instead of excited to work on something new.

Junhui was in the midst of teaching himself a jump series when he heard the click of the door handle, loud even with his music playing, his feet moving quickly as his heels brushed past each other to land with alternating feet in front. Instead of turning around to investigate who it was, there was certainty there anyway, Junhui continued to concentrate on his own movements until he was finished the passage. He took out his earphones, but continued dancing, Wonwoo could join him when he was ready.

During the next thirty-two counts, his gaze slid to meet Wonwoo’s blinking eyes through the mirrors for a few seconds, Wonwoo’s mouth slightly agape, and flashed him a quick pursing of his lips before returning his focus to the turnout in his legs for the changements sequence. He scrutinized his own feet and pelvis during his jumps, but he couldn’t help noticing Wonwoo’s wide smile out of the corner of his eye. His stomach flip flopped, his heart rate sped up and he couldn’t help the smile that formed on his face even as he fought down the warmth spreading from his chest That radiating feeling didn’t make any sense. Why were either of them happy that Junhui was here first? That didn’t make sense, Junhui didn’t do this to please Wonwoo, he woke up early in order to fix the problems in the only practical way possible – working harder.

Getting distracted by his thoughts wasn’t the plan. Junhui returned to observing his knees in the mirror, making sure they were oriented over his second toe with every landing, and scolded himself every time his eyes went wayward to watch what Wonwoo was doing. Yelling at himself was a good conditioning technique, because he didn’t even notice when Wonwoo was finished at the bar until he was tapped on the shoulder. Junhui paused, mid step, and straightened up, swivelling on his toes.

“You’re here really early,” Wonwoo said noncommittally when they were facing each other, he was smiling though, widely. Feeling weak in the knees, his palms suddenly very sweaty, Junhui realized he hadn’t expected Wonwoo could be such a smiley person.

Junhui nodded slowly. “I’m really sorry about last week, I shouldn’t have left before our time was up. I thought I’d make up for things by starting to work on the choreography you created to cut down on the amount of time we spend re-learning and re-teaching the existing bits.” His tone was polite, and he kept his arms hanging by his sides to maintain a neutral pose.

His mood plummeted when Wonwoo shook his head quickly. They had just traded smiles, had Junhui manage to fuck things up again that quickly? He didn’t think he said anything wrong, and he replayed his voice in his head with dread seeping into his veins, heart sinking. “No, no, no,” Wonwoo said. Junhui felt his face get tight, worried they were back to square one with things between them, he really was doing what his instincts told him, just like Jihoon had said. “No, we’ll do things right this time.” What did that mean? Junhui couldn’t wrap his head around the way things were going. “Let’s scrap everything we had before and start over. I know I got mad about wasting time, but I shouldn’t have. The marks aren’t as important as the integrity of the project. Let’s begin again and choreograph together. As partners. Like in the spy movies, partners in crime.” Wonwoo offered Junhui a delicate smile, his eyes hopeful.

For a moment, as Junhui’s heart fluttered and settled, he thought he saw fear there, and wondered why Wonwoo was afraid. It must’ve been a trick of the light, there was no reason for Wonwoo to be intimidated by him, it was surely the other way around. Wonwoo with his scary persona, and Junhui with his foreigner status.

Or maybe it was just his stomach feeling unsettled again. It was awfully unsettled lately.

Junhui swallowed thickly. “Alright, together, as partners.” He smiled back feebly. That was…unexpected, but not unpleasant. “But really, I’m the one who should be sorry.”

Wonwoo laughed. “Are we really going to have another fight over who should be apologizing?” He shook his head, but there was a fond, albeit slightly sheepish, smirk on his face. “How about we fast forward through this argument?” He joked. “Let’s say we were both at fault and start brainstorming, is that okay?”

“R-right,” Junhui stammered, scratching at his arm so that his hands would have something to do. Was it just him, or was it really hot in the studio this time of year? He slid his palms over the fabric on his torso.

“And I keep asking leading questions, but you should tell me what you think. You don’t have to always agree with me.” Wonwoo laughed again, his eyes curved and teeth blinding. “But your idea of having that port de bras for the melodic motif was really good, I was thinking we should go with that and then build?”

Junhui swallowed around a lump in his throat, his heart hammering in his chest. “What, this?” He quickly demonstrated what he came up with the week before and Wonwoo nodded.

“Yeah. I really like it, I think it’s just complex enough that your eyes are drawn to it and it forces you to pay attention, but it’s also simple enough that you can remember the entirety from beginning to end. Plus, it doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult to add elements to it for the busier sections of the music.”

Junhui agreed wholeheartedly, but he was surprised that Wonwoo remembered. There was a burst of pride in his chest, accompanied by an acceleration in his heart rate. The nervousness, combined with his newfound determination not to make a fool out of himself in front of Wonwoo, was really taking a toll on him.

For the next few hours they debated and shaped out a dance for the small portion of music around that phrase, neither of them bothered by the fact that they weren’t beginning with the introduction. After a while, Junhui felt he recognized some of the movements Wonwoo was incorporating from the stuff they had come up with before, but Junhui was also pulling in things he had been working on so that their old ideas weren’t tossed out entirely, but existed now as entirely different entities.

Their choreography featured some mirrored elements, but very rarely were both of them doing the same thing. And yet, it already was looking more unified compared to the run-through they last performed. It was like fitting together the pieces of a puzzle to build a full picture. In the early days, they were each completing their own puzzle, where the final image for each person looked completely different. Try as they might to piece it together, there was no way they would have been able to prevent aspects from looking jarring, or sticking out in all the wrong ways. Now that they had one theme, and one vision, putting things together was a piece of cake.

Never before had they finished a session with both of them smiling at the end, completely satisfied with what they had done. Today, however, Wonwoo came out of his relevé with a grin, and held out a hand beside his ear. Junhui high fived him with a smile blossoming on his face as well. The feeling of butterflies returned to his stomach, and he willed his body to settle down, laughing at himself when he toppled sideways in the ensuing shoulder bump. That was more normal than feeling embarrassed, at least.

“If we work this fast for the rest of the semester, we’ll be done way before the actual performance. While everyone else is scrambling we’ll just be watching them and laughing,” Wonwoo declared. His lips were back in a neutral line, but Junhui recognized his tone as joking.

“Well, everyone except Jihoon and Soonyoung, probably,” Junhui reminded him. His thumbs dug into the base of his sternum, a point of focus to distract himself from the queasiness. “Speaking of which, the three of us agreed to grab dinner together. At the caf, nothing exciting, but you should join us if you don’t have any other plans.”

“Alright, I will.”

“Great.” What on earth had possessed him to ask that? “I’ll text you when we’re nearly there?”

“Sounds good to me,” Wonwoo said with a relaxed smile.

Junhui’s stomach rolled over again in a very unsettling way. Obviously he was just hungry. It was lunch time, after all, and they must have worked really hard for him to have worked up such an appetite.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“You were right,” Junhui admitted quietly while he and Jihoon looked for somewhere to sit with at least four empty spots. There were always fewer people in the cafeteria on weekends, which afforded them getting to dinner a little bit later. Junhui bypassed one table which had three vacant seats to spot empty one tucked in the back corner and nudged Jihoon towards it.

Jihoon took a chance while Junhui was distracted to steal a pickled radish from Junhui’s tray, eyes spread open and alert as he smirked. “I’m always right.” Junhui would never know the smug smile on his face was from his successful theft and not from him being self-satisfied.

“Right about what?” Soonyoung caught up to them and tried to use the top of Jihoon’s head for a shoulder rest. Jihoon moved so quickly to stab Soonyoung’s stomach with the back of his chopsticks that Soonyoung couldn’t balance his tray onto one hand to use the other to protect himself. He grunted at the pain and sulked as he rubbed the sore spot, trailing behind them again like a wounded puppy.

“Everything. I’m telling you. I’m predicting it’s going to be fucking freezing over there beside the windows, and I bet you your sweet potatoes that you’re going to be an asshole and bother me about how cold it is before we finish dinner.” They set their trays down, and slid onto the benches, Junhui pulling the collar of his sweater up higher to cover his neck. He twitched a little as his body got used to the chill, but was quickly warmed when he shoved a spoonful of rice into his mouth.

“As if! I’ll never let you have my sweet potatoes.” Soonyoung wrapped a hand around the dish and covered it with his palm protectively, keeping it away from Jihoon’s predatory eyes and fast fingers.

Jihoon laughed gleefully, and simply began eating his own food. Soonyoung would forget about this conversation soon enough, and when he was sufficiently distracted, Jihoon would pounce again. “Anyway, I actually have no clue what Junhui’s talking about, I just assume it’s one of the many times my words have proven true. That’s normally the case, so it’s not news to me, and frankly shouldn’t be news to either of you.”

Junhui reached out a finger to tap Jihoon’s arm but thought better of it when Jihoon narrowed his eyes at him for getting too close. He withdrew his hand and played with the edge of his dinner tray instead. “Remember…that conversation we had…”

“You’re really going to need to be more specific, we’ve had, not that you’ve forgotten, probably hundreds of conversations since we met and I actually don’t remember all of them because I’m not a freak of nature with scarily good memory,” Jihoon said straightforwardly, blinking deliberately and rolling his eyes around to hit Junhui with a blank stare. Junhui, however, wasn’t paying attention to him anymore, his eyes wide and expression eager as he spotted someone walking towards their table.

Jihoon followed the direction of Junhui’s gaze with suspicion. He didn’t like strangers joining them for meals, especially when he wasn’t prepared like today, since he wasn’t usually so on guard around his friends. That was something Junhui knew too so why would he…? Oh, it was just Wonwoo. _Oh._ Right, they were talking about Wonwoo.

“I see,” Jihoon muttered, kicking at and missing Junhui’s legs under the table, “Did you listen to me? Wasn’t I right? I really _am_ always right.”

“What are you right about this time?” Wonwoo asked, after snorting. He gave Junhui a grateful nod for sliding over to make room and took the seat beside him. He picked up his glass to take a sip of water and set it back down beside the book taking up space on his tray, which was otherwise piled with mountains of food. Jihoon thought he must have had twice as much rice as the rest of them put together.

“Everything,” Jihoon said, at the same time that Soonyoung groaned exaggeratedly, slumping forwards and dropping his chopsticks with a clatter.

“Don’t let him get started. If you give him an opening, he’ll start rubbing every single thing that we did wrong in our faces just because he can.” Soonyoung’s chopsticks had stopped moving, and Jihoon suspected that like him, he was taking a long, envious look at the amount to eat on Wonwoo’s tray.

Wonwoo didn’t seem to notice everyone staring, and simply helped himself to a generous portion of pork with chopsticks, followed by a spoonful of stew and rice.

Soonyoung smacked his lips noisily, eyes on the prize. “Wonwoo-goon, you’re not going to finish all that right?”

Wonwoo looked up and circled his head to see three matching expressions of gluttony. He pulled his tray closer to himself and started heaping food down his throat at a faster rate. “Are you kidding me? I’m hungry enough to go back for seconds. Get your own food,” mouth full as he spoke.

“Even if I asked for thirds, ahjumma still wouldn’t have given me as much food as she’s given you,” Soonyoung complained, resting his chin on one fist. He ate his rice grain by grain, to draw out the length of his meal. If they continued at their respective paces, they’d probably get to the bottom of their bowls at the same time.

Junhui watched Wonwoo eat with furrowed eyebrows. He stared at Wonwoo’s thin frame, and looked sideways at his waist and back. When he returned to his original starting position, he was no less confused. “But where does it all _go_?” He blurted, unable to comprehend the amount of food Wonwoo was eating. One of his hands hovered by Wonwoo’s bony shoulders but didn’t touch.

Soonyoung, still sulking, explained, “She keeps feeding him extra because he’s so skinny, but his metabolism is so fast it just burns all the extra calories away. I don’t understand, if I had that monstrous of an appetite, Jihoon would be complaining I was getting too heavy within days.”

“Wait, why would Jihoon care how much you weigh?” Wonwoo asked.

Junhui looked at Soonyoung with amusement, eyes finally drawn away from Wonwoo and his dinner.

Jihoon glared daggers at the side of Soonyoung’s head. “Yeah, why would it matter to me how much you weigh?” Soonyoung tittered nervously, eyes darting from side to side. He didn’t feel his cheeks warm but Jihoon’s ears were starting to turn pink. He hurried to think of some excuse before Wonwoo caught on.

“Aw, you poor classical kids, don’t know anything about dancing hip hop!” He leaned forward and reached a hand out to ruffle Junhui’s hair, chuckling nervously.

Junhui snorted at how shitty of a cover up that was.

“What _the fuck_ does hip hop have to do with it?” Jihoon asked in a whisper, the fury in his eyes only slightly masked by the cloyingly sweet tone he was using to speak. Soonyoung saw himself burning at the stake in Jihoon’s eyes and gulped, tugging the collar of his shirt away from his neck even though the kimchi wasn’t really spicy.

“Way too much information,” Junhui hummed with an overly chipper tone considering what he was saying. He was completely unbothered by the suggestion of Soonyoung being on top of Jihoon, as he’d accidentally found them in all sorts of compromising positions in the past and becoming immune to the shock of seeing how touchy-feely Jihoon could get with the right person. He wasn’t a prude.

“Oh. _Oh_. It was a sex thing.” Wonwoo mumbled, flushing with embarrassment after having finally caught on. Junhui laughed at the pretty shade of pink his face was turning, the colour highlighting the prominence of Wonwoo’s cheekbones. He really did have very nice bone structure.

He turned back to see Jihoon’s glare turning murderous, and for the sake of Soonyoung’s life, he put down his chopsticks to fix his bangs and forcefully steered the conversation in the direction of Soonyoung’s distraction. “Anyway…don’t ‘you poor classical kids’ us, ballet is way harder than whatever you do!”

“Well, how can you explain the fact that literally no one in the school with a ballet background can dance hip hop without looking super awkward?” Soonyoung waggled his eyebrows in challenge, quickly and gratefully latching onto Junhui’s assistance. He nudged Jihoon with his knee under the table to beg for forgiveness.

“That’s not a fair sample size!” Junhui protested. “I’m sure there are lots of people who can do both who say that ballet is way more difficult!”

“Besides you haven’t seen all of us try it,” Wonwoo butted in, only briefly taking a break from his food. “To me, hip hop is easier than making kimbap!”

Junhui turned to look at Wonwoo for that comment, who was smirking at Soonyoung like he’d won the battle. Soonyoung shook his head. “You can’t cook, can’t tell funny jokes…Hang on, I can do ballet and hip hop and I say hip hop is definitely more challenging. It requires your own style rather than following a set of rules, there’s a lot more freestyle involved and making things yourself. Not to mention the movements aren’t as conventional.”

“Having to remember and follow all the expected forms in ballet is half the challenge! And when you dance you purposely break those conventions, that’s how innovation happens,” Junhui said hotly.

Wonwoo nodded. “Besides, it’s not like creativity-wise we’re all old people, modern ballet is all about the bold people!”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Soonyoung put both his hands up, snickering despite himself. “Two against one isn’t fair. Come on Jihoon, back me up.”

Having not paid attention to a lick of what was just said, Jihoon looked up passively. He spotted Junhui and Wonwoo with their heads held close together, faces wearing matching expressions of disdain at Soonyoung and a question popped up into his mind.

“Do you think?” He started to ask, and turned to whisper something in Soonyoung’s ear, hand cupped around his mouth to block out both the sight and sound of his words from the other two.

“Ehhhh.” Soonyoung raised an eyebrow. “Do you think so?” He gave it a second’s thought and then rapidly shook his head. “No way. You’re totally wrong.”

“How much do you wanna bet?”

“What? Like, a month’s worth of meals – there’s no way you’re right about this one.”

Jihoon shrugged and returned his focus back to eating.

“Wait, really? That’s all you have to say?” Soonyoung shook Jihoon’s shoulder and sucked his teeth when there was no response. “Man, you’re no help.”

“I guess that means we win,” Wonwoo said with a smirk. He held out a hand, and Junhui high fived him with a gleeful laugh. Wonwoo’s smirk turned into a grin that Junhui had to look away from immediately, otherwise he’d risk immediately throwing up everything he had just eaten.

“But hold on, Jihoon what were you saying? Why does Soonyoung think you’re wrong? Jihoonie tell me, I think things too!” Junhui whined, stomping his feet on the ground like a child.

He didn’t give up on nagging Jihoon when something was dropped in front of him with a clatter.

He looked up to see Soohee’s crinkled eyes and hair pulled up into a neat bun. She grinned at him and tilted her chin in the direction of the dessert she had deposited on their table.

“I can’t believe…You know you didn’t have to right?”

“I know, but I wanted to.” She patted his head lightly and flinched nearly imperceptibly. Junhui titled his head, wondering what had caused that reaction, and turned to see what had caught her eye. Looking around, all he saw was Wonwoo giving them one of his blank expressions, lips flattened. “Uh I better get back.”

He supposed Wonwoo’s face was always kind of scary looking when it was blank, although Junhui had discovered over the past few weeks that it didn’t mean anything. To be fair, that wasn’t information he had at his disposal at the beginning of the semester either. “Well, thanks!” Junhui said cheerily. He looked at Soohee and the thoughtful expression on her face, and back at Wonwoo whose face remained unmoving and uninterested.

She nodded and stepped back from the table, a slow smile spreading across her face, before waving and running off. Wonwoo’s eyes were glued to her retreating back. His tongue darted outward to wet his lips and he wrinkled his nose. Junhui’s mouth became very dry and his stomach coiled inward on itself, making him shift in his seat with the queasiness.

“I thought you were joking about the cake thing,” Soonyoung said with disbelief once she was gone, snapping Junhui’s attention away from Wonwoo’s face.

“I _was_ joking about it, but I guess it’s nice of her.” He turned to look at the item in question and jerked backward. “Although, I’m really not hungry anymore,” Junhui muttered, pushing the plate away from him.

“Really?” Soonyoung leapt forward, snatching it closer and stabbing his still stew covered spoon down the middle to take a huge bite. Jihoon gave him a mildly disgusted look but dug into the other half and the slice of cake was gone before Junhui managed to even blink twice.

He looked over and Wonwoo apologetically, even though it wasn’t his fault that Jihoon and Soonyoung hadn’t shared. Strangely enough, Wonwoo was smiling. He appeared to Junhui very much like a cat who had gotten the cream, even though he hadn’t gotten a piece of cake at all. Junhui’s attention was only drawn away from Wonwoo licking his lips by a yelp across the table.

“Kwon Soonyoung! Get your head out from underneath my arm right now!”

From still tucked between Jihoon’s elbow and his torso, Soonyoung’s voice whined, “But Jihoonie, it’s _cold_. Let’s share our body warmth, please?” He emerged from his tucked away spot of warmth and gave Soonyoung a cute pout, hands clasped together around his chopsticks and spoon to plead with him.

Jihoon pretended to consider it for a moment, eyes on Soonyoung, before lunging forward and skewering the last piece of sweet potato on Soonyoung’s plate with a single chopstick and stuffing it into his mouth, hand out to catch anything that might fall. Junhui laughed, covering his mouth with his hand.

It took Soonyoung a moment to process what had happened, still caught up on wanting to use Jihoon as a personal space heater. “Hey! I was saving that for the end! How could you?” Soonyoung tried to cuff Jihoon’s ear, but Jihoon dodged easily, and smiled as he chewed all the while. Soonyoung’s attempts to pull him into a headlock were likewise unsuccessful, and Jihoon flashed him a ‘V’ with his fingers.

“You said you’d never give up your sweet potatoes,” Jihoon said with his nose in the air. “I told you you’d end up bothering me about how cold it was before we finished dinner.” Jihoon tucked his hair behind his ears and peered down at their now empty trays with false nonchalance. He couldn’t help himself. It only took one look at Soonyoung’s heartbroken expression for him to grin at his victory. “Like I said,” He turned to flash his grin at Junhui as well, “I’m _always_ right.”

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

Wonwoo’s nose was buried in a novel when Junhui nearly tripped over a chair leg and stumbled up against his desk, knocking it back about a dozen centimetres and sending a pencil rolling.

Flushed, Junhui held out his hands and bowed his head. “Sorry, sorry, I’ll watch where I’m going in the future—hang on, I didn’t know you were in the same class!” It wasn’t until he lifted his head again that he finally recognized his dance partner. Most of the third years were in the humanities math stream, which was studying probability and statistics after wrapping up integration. There was only one section of calculus and vectors students, for those really keen on matrices or who wanted to study science and needed a more rigorous background in mathematics, despite going to an arts school. Which meant they had been sitting in the same aisle of seats, separated by two desks, for an entire month and a half without Junhui realizing it.

Their eyes met over the top of the book and Wonwoo blinked before lowering it, keeping a finger in between the pages where he had stopped. “We have all our classes together. Even the dance ones,” Wonwoo informed him.

“I guess I’m really unobservant, I never realized…” Junhui scratched the tip of his nose and looked down at his feet.

“Even though our names get called out before every class?” Wonwoo had slipped a sheet of paper as a bookmark to replace his finger and set it down on his desk. The fingers of one hand drummed against the wood, and he bent his other arm to lean his weight against an elbow.

The ends of his hair stung Junhui’s cheek as he shook his head fervently, whipping against the soft skin. “Don’t really pay attention, I’m always startled when I hear my own name, to be honest.”

“What about when grades came out? This is like the only class where you’re ahead of me, I’m number one in everything else, and you’ve never noticed my name?” He crossed his legs and placed the hand he wasn’t using to rest his chin between his thighs.

“Wait a second I’m first in more classes than just math. Physics? I’m definitely first in Chinese too!” Junhui counted on his fingers, eyes focused on the ceiling as he thought back to the grades they had gotten on their last unit tests.

Wonwoo slipped his hand out from between his thighs and waved it dismissively. “Semantics. Are you telling me you don’t even care about who’s done better than you in any courses, as long as you know what rank you are?” His tone was one of genuine interest now, back straight with both his shoulders leaning toward Junhui.

Junhui lowered his eyes and frowned. “Am I supposed to be worried? I mean, now that you’ve told me it’s you, is this a threat? Should I feel threatened?” He crossed his arms over his chest and tapped his index finger on his forearm.

“No no, don’t worry, you can continue excelling in Chinese. That is not somewhere I think I’ll ever beat you,” Wonwoo said, lifting his head and splaying all his fingers on both hands in a placating way. “I’m just more than a little surprised that you’re so…unaware of your surroundings. You must be very focused on the coursework.”

“I mean, I’m not entirely stupid, I knew we were in the same class last year…It wasn’t like I thought you’d be in a different class, I guess I just never really thought about who else was here.” Junhui shifted from foot to foot, tucking his bangs behind his ears and feeling a familiar sense of embarrassment creeping through him. Was it always going to be this way around Wonwoo? Minghao had made fun of him for being zoned out all the time, but Junhui had never felt bad about it. One casual observation from Wonwoo though, and his heart was beating faster, blood rushing to his ears and face.

“If Soonyoung were here he’d be howling, wondering how on earth this was possible, pulling at his hair, making dramatic hand gestures and stuff. But,” Wonwoo shrugged, “I guess all I can say is yeah I am in this class.” He smiled, the creases between the corners of his nose and the corners of his lips folding strikingly, mouth open to reveal tidy white teeth. The embarrassment had bubbled over and Junhui’s insides somersaulted within his abdomen.

Junhui forced himself to giggle at the mention of Soonyoung’s over the top antics, and felt a wave of relief wash over him when the teacher arrived. He waved goodbye to Wonwoo quickly, avoiding eye contact, and rushed to his seat further back in the room with more eagerness than he normally felt for class.

They were going over how to calculate the volume created by rotating a function around a line today, which Junhui had self-taught from the textbook during the week when he was wallowing about the status of their group project. His attention flitted in and out from the teacher’s lecture on applications of integration to the clouds outside the window. Whenever he saw one with an interesting shape, he doodled it into his notebook once he completed the example problem, ahead of the teacher writing down the solution on the chalkboard.

He jotted a few notes down for what to do when the pivot point in question wasn’t the y or x axis, and flipped forward to calculating volumes created by rotating the shape created by the area between two functions around an axis. It made logical sense to him, the way the formulas came together, and he did a simple practice question before returning to the content that was being presented in class.

While the teacher’s back was turned, Junhui leaned sideways to peer ahead at Wonwoo, wondering what he was up to. Was he back to reading the book Junhui had interrupted when he tripped? Junhui winced, suddenly remembering the events that led up to him realizing they were in the same class. That had been pretty embarrassing too, even though he was too distracted at the time to notice. Or, and this thought made him feel a little bit smug in spite of himself, maybe Wonwoo was paying rapt attention in his attempts to do better on the math exams than Junhui. As if he’d ever let that happen. He’d never been less than number one in any of his math classes since first grade of elementary school.

The minutes ticked by slowly, and Junhui tried to pay attention so he wouldn’t miss any details, and would catch any thinking errors or fundamental mistakes from his own learning. His problem sets, however, were always impeccable, as was his homework, so it took a lot effort for him to remain concerned with what was going on at the front of the classroom.

By the time the teacher had dismissed the class for their respective arts courses, Junhui was already packed up and ready to leave. He was the first one to the door, sliding it open and nearly running into Mingyu.

“Ahh!” He lifted a hand to his chest, holding it there to steady his heartbeat. The suddenness hadn’t frightened him more than the unexpectedness had.

Mingyu was rolling forwards and back on the balls of his feet. “Hyung!” He exclaimed when he realized it was Junhui and enveloped Junhui in a hug, making Junhui lose his grip on his bag, this time actually from surprise. His things landed with a thump on the ground, and Mingyu looked only slightly sheepish when he removed his arms from around Junhui’s neck. He picked the backpack up and shoved it back into Junhui’s hands before quickly turning and tackling someone else with one of his tight hugs.

“What are you doing here?” Junhui pushed the door the rest of the way open, and stood to the side in case anyone else was trying to get in and out but was blocked by them standing in the way.

“Wonwoo-hyung left his biology book in my room last night so I brought it over.” Mingyu released Wonwoo from his embrace and grinned at both of them.

“We don’t have biology today…” Junhui pointed out.

Wonwoo had grabbed Mingyu in a headlock, reaching on his tiptoes to get his arm around Mingyu’s neck and pulling him down. “Exactly, so there was no need for you to rush over between classes. I definitely texted you this information, by the way.”

“That’s okay!” Mingyu clutched onto Wonwoo’s forearm and tried to wiggle himself out of his grasp. He was laughing, and didn’t seem to be affected by this fact whatsoever. Eventually he managed to slip his head out from under Wonwoo’s elbow and readjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder before looking up at his bangs and fiddling with them to get his hair to sit right.

As soon as it was neat and tidy again, Wonwoo reached up and used his hand to ruffle Mingyu’s hair, creating a mess again.

“Hyung!” Mingyu whined, shaking his head to try to get the strands that were sticking out to lie flat.

Junhui laughed. “Come on, stop being so vain. You have drama next, right?” If his memory served correctly, this was around the time the second year acting majors would usually create a ruckus on the third floor outside some of the drama rooms. “We’re headed in the same direction to get to the studio next, so let’s get going or we’re going to be late.”

“Are you going to walk me to class, Junhui-hyung?” Mingyu asked with round eyes. He looped an arm around Junhui’s bicep and Junhui nodded, patting his hand. That only encouraged Mingyu more, until he had both hands around Junhui’s arm, clinging like a child would to a parent when going to the school for the first time. The thought of acting as Mingyu’s mom made Junhui laugh again.

“Well, I suppose. You’re the small child that needs protecting, and Wonwoo can trail behind us like he’s the stoic dad of the family who doesn’t know how to be warm toward kids.”

“Umma!” Mingyu bounced with excitement as they walked.

Junhui turned his head back to glance at Wonwoo and tilted his head up with a smirk, raising his eyebrows briefly. Wonwoo looked away, but he was laughing too. Junhui beamed.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

The rate at which they were reworking the choreography had slowed considerably once they had pulled together all the things they had done individually. Only about half of that material had really made it into the cut, since they had been choreographing to the same musical sections and they couldn’t be doing two things at the same time. So far, only the port de bras Junhui had come up with was done in unison, everything else was either a mirror, a call and response, one after the other, or the two of them were dancing completely separate things.

It was inevitable, of course, that their progress wouldn’t be as fast once they had repurposed what was already existing and were forced to come up with new material. In some ways, it was easier having two people thinking about the same problems, theoretically it meant they had twice the number of ideas. But many of their movements were sequences of steps, and sometimes the best steps across both of their brainstormed components didn’t fit in a sequence together. Other times, what one person thought looked really good wasn’t necessarily something the other person agreed on, and similarly, sometimes one person would start to find problems with a certain section while the other thought it would be fine to leave it as it was.

“Do you think Soonyoung and Jihoon can read each other’s minds? What if they’re actually the same person in two bodies and that’s why one of them is always too happy and the other always too mad? Like they just sequestered different parts of their personalities into different people?” Junhui asked with an irritated huff.

Wonwoo looked at him with bewilderment across his face. They had finally come to terms with the fact that they weren’t going to be happy with the pirouettes section unless it was exactly symmetrical, and since Wonwoo refused to level down to the triple that Junhui felt completely comfortable doing (“I can pull off quintuples! This is a showcase, not an exercise. Come on, I know you can do it, you’re nearly there!”), it meant that Junhui was going to have to nail the consistency of his quadruple turn within the next few months.

Junhui continued to sulk. “Seriously! How can they do all their projects together and not have any problems?” His respect for Jihoon and Soonyoung’s ability, and affinity, for working in tandem grew the more closely he and Wonwoo worked together. It was one thing when they were being polite and formal and extra-cautious about not stepping on each others’ toes. Ever since they had left all their anger on the table, screaming at each other and fuming, they no longer seemed to be able to rein in their opinions. They squabbled constantly over everything, although none of their fights were nearly as serious. Wonwoo was blunt and focused, but above all very level-headed. Junhui was simultaneously hypercritical and too easily overexcited. Their reactions never lined up immediately after anything, although usually they were both satisfied by the end of the day, even if it took a lot of pushing and pulling to get each other to that point.

“How is this my life. Other than the classroom, studio, and library, I’m never going to see the outside world again. Do you know how much work I’m going to have to put into this so I can keep up with your overly-gifted ass?” Wonwoo laughed at him and left Junhui to work out his moping alone.

It was a short-lived tantrum, and one easily dealt with, remarkably, in comparison to the time that Wonwoo had shut down completely after Junhui accused him of being a robot.

“You never hate or love anything!” Junhui had yelled, tearing out chunks of his hair in frustration. “I have to discern through your tone and facial expression what your ‘It’s okay’s mean, and whether your attitude toward something is positive or negative. Why can’t you just _say_ whether or not you like it – it’s not a fault to have feelings!”

Wonwoo had turned away and refused to talk to him, and Junhui only wheedled out any words from him after apologizing and writing the words of his apology onto Wonwoo’s back with his finger. “I didn’t mean it, I know you have emotions, and I know you like things, I’m sorry I said otherwise when we both know it’s not true, like right now, see, you hate it when other people don’t realize you do have feelings! Please stop ignoring me, it’s kind of sad for me to be talking to myself in this giant room. I know you’re hurt and I really am sorry.”

“I don’t know why you felt compelled to say that when you can always tell how I feel…you’ve actually never been wrong in assessing if I’m saying something sucks or it’s good when I say ‘That’s okay’ to you,” Wonwoo grumbled.

Junhui sighed. “I know I was wrong, okay? It’s just…I guess when I’m the only one saying ‘I love it!’ or ‘Absolutely not!’ all the time, I start to question myself.” If he came out of this assignment with nothing else, at least he had become an expert in reading Jeon Wonwoo’s minute changes in facial expressions and the different tonal intonations of his voice. Well, it wasn’t all that difficult. Wonwoo was generous with his smiles, always warm and open, and surprisingly frequent when you paid attention. It was only when he was too tired that the smiles became slight twitches of the lips, and were tougher to differentiate from his passive mood. Which Junhui could relate to, really, he was always moodier when he was hungry.

They laid down, backs against the sprung floors, staring up at the fluorescent lighting and panting. Junhui’s muscles sagged and he felt himself melt, becoming one with the ground. He closed his eyes. “I’m exhausted. Do you want to call it a day? I know we’re on a tight schedule but I booked extra studio time next Sunday so we can work more then. Oh, I just realized I forgot to mention this earlier.” He turned his head towards Wonwoo. “Are you free that day?”

Wonwoo turned his head to look back at Junhui, one eye narrowed, the other open wide and eyebrow raised. “Oh, you know how to book studio time now too?”

They were close enough that Junhui only need to move his elbow a few centimetres to nudge Wonwoo in the arm. “You’re an asshole for not telling me that was something all students could do,” He groused.

“Nah.” Wonwoo grinned slowly, the corners of his lips lifting to show off the points of his canines. “I mean, in the moment I was sure you should’ve known and then afterward, well. I guess I thought I’d let you make up whatever image you wanted to have of me.” He shrugged, the smile turning thoughtful but not quite bitter. “Everyone else has one, so it was only fair that you got the chance to create one too.” He cleared his throat. “To be honest, I expected you to just let that representation of me inside your mind stand. Well, because…everyone else holds my reputation before who I am.” The fingers of his right hand fidgeted with his left wrist. “So thanks, I guess.” His eyelids fluttered as he closed his eyes and nodded, the smile blooming across his face again, this time without teeth.

Junhui licked his lips and swallowed dryly before responding, eyes on Wonwoo’s dark lashes as he tried to calm the lurching of his stomach. “It wasn’t fair of me to make assumptions either.” Their eyes met when Wonwoo opened his, and Junhui tried for a wry smile. “You’re just really good and everyone likes you and I just wanted to come up with flaws to pin on you…like being given special treatment or something, so I could justify to myself reasons why I shouldn’t like you.” The words tumbled out of his mouth straight from his brain, without filter, too concentrated on the deep brown of Wonwoo’s eyes. His voice dropped lower. “But I couldn’t come up with flaws, and that just made things worse.”

“So you think I’m flawless then?” Wonwoo’s face went from surprised to smug and satisfied faster than the speed of Junhui’s stomach tumbling in somersaults inside him.

Junhui’s brain raced to come up with a response to that, fingers clenching and unclenching around nothing. “Yeah it only took me about two seconds to realize you’re a stubborn asshole with shitty jokes,” He said, eventually, going for as flippant a tone as he could. He rolled his eyes upward, looking away from Wonwoo to settle down his stomach as much as possible.

“At least you like me now too, right?”

Wonwoo jabbed two fingers into Junhui’s side, chuckling as Junhui screeched, “Stop that, I’m ticklish!” He curled in on himself when Junhui started retaliating by smacking him with the heel of his palm, eyes curved into tiny half moons and grin wide on his face. In that position he elbowed back, landing a hit to Junhui’s stomach and rolled out from underneath Junhui’s arm. Junhui grabbed at him, and Wonwoo clung onto his wrist, trying to prevent him from inflicting further damage. It didn’t make a difference, because Junhui kneed him in the pelvis and while Wonwoo was distracted, reached an arm around him to see if _he_ was ticklish.

He was. Wonwoo shrieked with laughter before Junhui’s fingers even found a sensitive spot, and his first reaction was to chomp down on Junhui’s arm, teeth sinking into the flesh without sympathy.

“Ow, shit, jeez that hurt!” Junhui pulled back his arm, lightning quick, and blew a stream of air over the angry red indents, soothing the skin. One of his legs was still pinned over Wonwoo’s hips, trapping him down. Wonwoo shifted his feet closer to his bum and arched upward, bending at the knees to send Junhui’s leg flying into the air, and slid out from underneath. Junhui was still concentrated on the teeth marks on his arm, and was caught unawares by Wonwoo grabbing onto his arms and giving his shoulder a punch.

“I win,” he declared, leaning high over Junhui.

In a swift movement, he was flipped over and landed on his back with a soft thud, the wind knocked out of him.

“Over me, a martial arts master? I don’t think so.” He feigned a yawn as he kept Wonwoo pinned down, unrelenting despite the wriggling Wonwoo was doing in an attempt to struggle free.

“Junhui-hyung! Soohee-noona told me to tell you she would wait in the lounge room with the vending machines because she was hungry—”

Seungkwan’s voice was high pitched and loud, bouncing between the four corners of the large, mostly empty studio room, over the sound of Junhui and Wonwoo’s pants, peals of laughter, and squealing. Their heads turned simultaneously to look at him, attentions pulled away from each other very suddenly.

Seungkwan blinked.

“Is this part of your choreography?” He asked. “Wait, oh!” He clapped his hands together. “You should show me what you have!”

“Goddamnit, buy tickets and watch it at the year end performance. What is with you younger generations wanting free shows?” Wonwoo scowled and angrily pushed Junhui off of him, turning his head away to hide his face.

Junhui stumbled backward, attention still on Seungkwan, and landed on his ass. He stood quickly, before either of them had a chance to laugh, dusting off his shorts and wiping his palms on the stretchy fabric.

“But I’m your _friend_ , even if I am younger than you. Please? Imagine everyone’s faces if they knew I got a sneak peak at Wonwoo-hyung and Junhui-hyung’s project.”

“Yeah yeah, that’s just even more reason not to give you anything. Tell her I’ll be there as soon as I have real clothes on,” Junhui called out. He held out a hand to help Wonwoo up as well, but Wonwoo didn’t take it, not looking up from pretending to inspect the laces of his ballet slippers. A look of hurt flashed quickly across Junhui’s face but disappeared soon after.

Seungkwan waved a hand and turned away, annoyed. “Tell her yourself! I only agreed to deliver this message because noona compliments my singing!”

“Wait! Boo Seungkwan, you have a very nice voice!” Junhui yelled after him, hurrying to pull a pair of sweats and a hoodie over his dance gear and running off before saying goodbye.

Wonwoo finally lifted his head up, still sitting on the studio floor, and watched with a cold look in his eyes as Junhui ran out of the studio. His hands were clenched into fists, and his expression was grim, top teeth biting down so hard on his lower lip that the colour had faded from red to nearly white. He tsked loudly, tilting his chin up while he pulled his knees toward his chest. Park Soohee could have waited patiently for them to finish, he and Junhui were partnering for a project worth marks after all, which was surely more important than whatever it was _she_ needed Junhui for.

Not to mention, Junhui never did answer Wonwoo’s question.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“It’s alright Mingyu-ya, I know how to use a microwave to make popcorn,” Junhui joked, reaching into one of the communal cupboards of the third year dance majors boys’ dorm for a heavy glass bowl. He pulled it off a middle shelf and set it aside on the hard counter top, before turning to dispose of the plastic wrapping around the instant popcorn.

“You can be in charge of the food and snacks, hyung, but I’m making drinks.” Mingyu hip-checked a drawer closed after fished out a spoon, and returned to the mugs he was attending to.

Having followed the instructions on the bag, Junhui put the paper package into the microwave and hit the requisite buttons. He hoisted himself to sit on the counter and watch Mingyu work. “Coffee? This late at night? Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Junhui clasped his fingers together and watched Mingyu’s deft hand movements with curiosity.

“Knowing Wonwoo-hyung chose the movie makes me absolutely certain that this is a good idea. He likes horror, and I always get nightmares based on the film if I fall asleep immediately after watching a scary movie. This way I can stay up and play video games to get the creepy and gory stuff out of my system before a good night’s rest.” He paused from fiddling with the machine to smile at Junhui, one hand on his hip.

“Aww, Mingyu-ya, are you scared?” Junhui wiggled his fingers as he swung his legs back and forth, smirking at him.

“Gross hyung, also, stop sitting on the counter, that’s super unhygienic.” Mingyu’s smile turned into a pout and he aggressively turned around to fuss with the mugs to hide the slight flush across his cheeks.

“Hmm…For me or for the counter?” Junhui did slip off, leaping down and landing silently by going through his toes, balls of the feet, and heel, absorbing the shock with his knees and leg muscles. He shouldn’t have been sitting around anyway, now that he thought about it, because there were other things to do while waiting for the popcorn.

Halfway through pouring out a bag of onion flavoured rings into a large blue plastic dish, the microwave beeped at him. Junhui hurried to open the door, letting out the heat so that the popcorn wouldn’t burn. He tested out the temperature of the now inflated bag with one finger and flinched. He shook his hand out to cool it against the burn and returned to sorting out the other food.

The rest of the onion ring snacks deposited, he dumped in a packet of cheese flavoured crackers and tomato flavoured potato chips before tossing them around in the dish to mix the three types together.

“Isn’t that a lot?” Mingyu asked, looking up from where he was drawing something in the foam of a latte.

“Four guys, four different types of snacks. You say ‘a lot’ now but I know how bottomless your stomach is, Kim Mingyu, you’re going to end up eating at least half of it all, and your friend Wonwoo will finish up the other half.” Junhui tossed all the empty packaging into the garbage and returned to the popcorn. He lifted it out of the microwave by a corner, yanked open the bag and upturned it to empty the popcorn into the first glass bowl he found. After trashing the empty popcorn sack as well, he clapped his hands together. “Easy. I’m done, do you want any help?” He had one arm around the large plastic bowl, and his other hand underneath the bottom of the glass bowl.

Mingyu shook his head and gave Junhui a weird look. “No, I’m nearly done too. But can you come back after you drop that off, I might need a hand carrying five drinks back over.”

“Sure.” Junhui took the bowls with him to the media room, where Jihoon had set up the projector and hooked it up to his laptop. With five people it just didn’t make sense to have them crowd around a tiny screen, piled on top of each other to try to see what was going on.

Soonyoung was trying to jump high enough to reach the projecting screen without using the pole with the hook like a normal person. Wonwoo was standing nearby, arms crossed and chuckling, ready to take over and grab it with ease at any moment. Junhui set everything down on the table in front of the sofa, moving a remote control out of the way and wandered over to lean against the television stand in the corner. He watched as Soonyoung despaired and finally gave up, letting Wonwoo do the honours. Wonwoo bent down, legs parallel, until his knees sank lower than ninety degrees and sprang upward, thighs, calves, ankles, and toes engaged in pushing away from the ground. He soared, one arm above his head, his hand covered by a sleeve, and easily hooked his fingers around the handle of the screen. His shirt sailed upward with him, revealing an expanse of creamy skin and well-defined abdominal muscles, before flapping back down as Wonwoo descended, pulling the screen down and unfurling it at the same time. He landed with barely any noise, and with his lips rounded smugly. The entire picture in front of him reminded Junhui of a cat.

From down the hall, Mingyu’s voice shouted out, “Hyung!”

Right, Junhui had forgotten he was supposed to go back. “Coming!” He yelled as he ran out of the room, and back down the hallway.

“So what’s the movie called?” Junhui asked once he and Mingyu had returned, setting a warm mug in front of each person, either on the table or the floor depending on where they were sitting. Jihoon was squished between Mingyu and Soonyoung on the couch, arms held over a cushion that was big enough it was almost taller than his torso when placed on his lap. Wonwoo and Junhui sat on the floor, Wonwoo with his back just beside Mingyu’s feet, and Junhui a little too close to Jihoon’s kicking range than he was entirely comfortable with.

“Janghwa, Hongryeon. A Tale of Two Sisters,” Wonwoo said, eyes not leaving the credits that were rolling, flowers sprawling across the screen as a background to the names of the actors. “It’s kind of old, but it came out when we were too young to watch it so I’ve never seen it before.”

Mingyu flinched at the clanging in the opening scene, despite it not being a particularly frightening moment.

Wonwoo snorted. “This isn’t even a scary part, calm down.” He passed the bowl of popcorn over so Mingyu could stuff his face and do something with his mouth instead of trying to defend himself.

“No way…Don’t tell me, does the doctor go on a killing spree or something?” Soonyoung asked, chewing noisily on a cracker. “He seems like the type to be a cold-hearted serial killer, don’t you think? Those eyes just scream murderer.”

“Shut up or I’m going to become a murderer,” Jihoon nagged, slapping the back of Soonyoung’s head and sending hair into his mouth. Soonyoung coughed and grumbled, but didn’t say anything else, sneaking his fingers underneath Jihoon’s so he could lace them together.

Jihoon didn’t seem to mind the public display of affection for once, although Soonyoung still jumped and flinched at his next words.

“Ugh, I hate the stepmother already,” Jihoon complained, “it’s her tone of voice. And how talkative she is. And what she is. We’re like an eighth of the way in and I already want her to die.”

“You really have no reverence for the terror in these kinds of movies, do you?” Wonwoo asked.

Jihoon shrugged.

“Well, if you’re as scary as Jihoonie is, what would you be afraid of?” Junhui said lightly, already angling away from – yup, there it was – Jihoon’s attempted kick.

“Hoon-ah’s not that scary.” Wonwoo laughed, the smile remaining on his face after the joke was forgotten, and Junhui wondered if he ate a bad kernel of popcorn. That was the only possible explanation for his insides being so suddenly twisted up.

“Ugh,” Jihoon whined again, “And the dad is so useless. I hate him too. I hate all of them, this movie suuuucks.”

“Shut up,” Wonwoo instructed. Junhui gaped at him being able to curse at Jihoon without fear, and the fact that Jihoon didn’t have any wayward kicks ready for him. “No one’s going to marathon all of the X-Men movies with you again, not only are some of them terrible, there’s like seven of them and in that case we might as well re-watch Harry Potter.”

“Or The Avengers!” Mingyu piped up.

“No, not unless someone’s around to avenge my death by overexposure,” Wonwoo said hurriedly.

Soonyoung butted in, “We’re not marathoning that series either, I’d rather watch Junhui’s melodramatic wuxia films than listen to you rehearse all the lines because you’ve watched those movies so many times you’ve memorized the entire script.” Wonwoo chuckled and held out a hand for Soonyoung to high five. Soonyoung didn’t notice.

Wonwoo’s smirk slipped off his face as he slowly retracted his hand, trying not to draw attention to the fact that he was left hanging. Junhui patted his shoulder while watching Mingyu shriek, and Wonwoo gave him a simultaneously grateful and doleful pout.

Mingyu’s subsequent yelling had nothing to do with Soonyoung’s comment, but everything to do with the bloody hand on the screen. He screamed throughout the entire movie whenever there was any sign of blood, enough so that the rest of them got tired of hitting his leg for doing it every time, and that it pulled Junhui out of the fear aspect of the movie. It gave him more space to think about the plot and what the story unfolding was about.

The part that made him want to look away the most was the mother’s seizure, oddly enough, and not the rather graphic displays of gore, or violence, or mutilation. It made him shiver from the unpleasantness, and he felt the discomfort rest in his skin for the remainder of the movie.

“I don’t get it,” Mingyu revealed when the film ended. He placed the empty dish on the table, finished licking up the crumbs, and returned to squeezing the cushion he had stolen from Jihoon. Jihoon made him pay for that by turning Mingyu’s lap into a footrest and then promptly falling asleep on Soonyoung’s shoulder. He had only been startled awake at Mingyu’s voice. “What actually happened?”

“Maybe you would have gotten more if you listened to the words instead of screaming your head off and making me deaf,” Wonwoo said darkly, slapping Mingyu’s knee repeatedly. It descended into Mingyu scratching at Wonwoo’s scalp with his fingernails and Wonwoo pulling away with a scowl.

“The dad is always useless and the stepmom is always the evil one. Every fairy tale ever. Every folk legend ever. Every story ever,” Jihoon grouched.

“But like the stepmom wasn’t evil, she was just crazy,” Soonyoung said. “No?”

“Wait the stepmother was only there for like, five minutes,” Junhui said. He turned his head to look at Wonwoo. “Didn’t it turn out that the main girl was acting out as the stepmother and herself and her sister all in one at the same time? Like they were manifestations of her mind or personality or something.”

Wonwoo nodded. “Yeah, and that’s why the stepmother was taking the pills, and not the girl herself, even though she was the one who was hospitalized and should have been medicated. It’s actually based off the Janghwa Hongryeon Jeon, but in that tale the stepmother is actually evil and actively kills off everyone else for the sake of her sons. Here it’s kind of ambiguous.”

“Hang on!” Soonyoung yelled, jumping to his feet. “Wow that makes total sense now!”

All he got for that was a snort. “Jeez, I don’t know why I bother thinking of you guys as intelligent human beings. It’s like only Junhui and I sat through the movie the way you guys don’t notice anything,” Wonwoo complained.

Junhui was still deep in thought about the tangled knot of the plot. “So, you know that scene where she says it’s all the stepmother’s fault? If she was actually the stepmother, then is the entire thing just a display of her guilt? And her trying to reconcile her actions and her own role in her mother and sister’s death?”

Wonwoo turned to look at Junhui, mouth agape. “Yes!” He leaned forward to clasp Junhui’s hand and give him a shoulder bump, leaving Junhui slightly perplexed. “That’s really smart, I think you’re totally right.”

“How could you even pay attention to something like that,” Mingyu complained, “and remember what she even said? My heart was beating so fast that I couldn’t think about anything other than the blood.”

“Yeah, your scaredy-cat guts can’t handle even a lick of horror,” Wonwoo confirmed, snorting again. He pressed his palm into the orangey dust that had mixed together at the bottom of the snack plate, a combination of red from the chips and cream from the rings. Once his fingers were coated, he reached out and shoved his hand in the direction of Mingyu’s face. “Look! Blood, so scary, I wonder who killed me?”

“Get your dirty hand away from me, Jeon!” Mingyu screamed, pushing Wonwoo’s arm aside and leaping back on the couch. “I’m never joining your movie night again, hyung-deul are too much for me!”

“Good,” Jihoon said, laughing as he watched the events around him unfold. Soonyoung had forced Junhui into giving him a piggyback, but Junhui was making him hold empty mugs to bring them back to the kitchen for washing. “It was only meant for people our age anyway.”

Mingyu stuck out his tongue, still running away from Wonwoo. Junhui returned with Soonyoung who dove into the chaos with glee, and watched the chase scene in front of him with one hand on his hips. It was funny to watch, he supposed, as long as nothing got knocked over or destroyed and they weren’t stuck cleaning up a huge mess. Soonyoung tossed a pillow at his head, an act of war.

“Yeah right! I know it was Jeonghan-hyung who invited you guys here last year, don’t act like it was your idea.” Mingyu had finally managed to grab hold of something he could use as a weapon, the wooden stick that was used to pull down the projector screen, and was triumphantly holding it in front of himself as a defence.

Junhui froze in the doorway, only having moved one step forward since being attacked by Soonyoung. He reached quickly into his pockets and pulled out his phone, ducking his chin so his bangs obscured his face.

So much for it not being a thing anymore.

Jihoon was on his toes, stepping around Wonwoo. “Well technically,” he shot Junhui a look, “Jeonghan-hyung invited Junhui, who invited us, so really it was our idea, specifically, it was Junhui’s idea. Right, Junhui?”

No, that _wasn’t_ a thing anymore. Junhui was grateful for Jihoon’s attempt at forcing him to unlearn his initial reaction of pulling away. It was time to move on. It had been time to move on for months, and he wasn’t going to let something that was more about things _not_ happening than actually happening control him anymore. He shoved his phone back into his pocket, and nodded with determination at Jihoon, who grinned at him, eyes crinkling and all.

In the midst of Jihoon being distracted, Soonyoung swatted a pillow at his head, an act of suicide. Well, if he was that determined to pick a fight, Junhui could join in. He picked up a cushion that had been abandoned and used it to busy Soonyoung’s hands while Jihoon jump kicked him.

Soonyoung ended up lying on the ground howling. No one paid him any attention. Mingyu and Wonwoo were busy trying to get around their stalemate. Jihoon had managed to return to the love of his life, his laptop. No one would notice if he just started watching the Wolverine origins movie for the forty second time, right? Except Junhui, whose only known way of expressing gratitude was, annoyingly, to koala cling to Jihoon.

From his position curled up on the floor, Soonyoung continued to whine pathetically.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

Sundays were usually even quieter than Saturdays, and the following weekend was no exception for Junhui, who padded into the studio by himself for the first time in weeks. The wooden barre creaked underneath his fingers, the metal fasteners that held it to the floor shaking a little as he leaned most of his body weight against it. Without Wonwoo as a reflection for all of his warmups, the room of the studio felt a little bigger than usual, and a little colder. He wore black tights over a grey bodysuit, the short sleeves tight on his shoulders. His hair was combed back, with his fingers rather than a hairbrush, pulled together near the top of his head and held by a thin black elastic.

Today his body positions were stiffer, under the scrutiny of his own eyes in the mirror, having no where else to focus his attention. The tightness of the lines, his muscles, his back, all extremely apparent to him now that he was seeing the details without distraction. He’d almost suggest they polish things independently, if it didn’t feel so empty in this space. Maybe as a result of becoming used to watching Wonwoo dance, all of the little things that Junhui wasn’t as good at became much more jarring. His toes, for example, as his pointe wasn’t as sharply curved as Wonwoo’s because his feet were slightly less flexible. The jumps, no question, didn’t have as much height or airtime. But it was also in the positions of his fingers, the way he held his hips, and the curvature of his arms. It was weird that all it took was a few weeks to become so used to something that was completely unfamiliar only two months prior.

“Right, so, learning to pirouette.” Junhui nodded, looked down at the dirty marks on his shoes, and grimaced. The basics for how to do one were drilled into him so long ago that he didn’t know if he could consciously walk himself through it. Most of the time he relied on muscle memory to nail the three turns and then land, but it wasn’t like he had extra time hovering in the air, or more thrust in the tank to whip his head around one more time.

Not that you really went into a pirouette with the intention of turning, mostly, you bent your legs to rise up in a high relevé position, on your toes for as long as possible as your arm pulled in. The head spotting and connecting your alignment, particularly of the back, to be ramrod straight as your neck and head moved loosely, that was what did most of the rotational work. Or so he was told.

What were the things teachers yelled out in class? “Keep your hip down, your head level, your thigh turned out, and pull all of your weight over your standing leg. Don’t wind up your arms!” The voice of the technique instructor haunted him and he shuddered, rolling the voice in his ear off his back as quickly as it came. Those things weren’t normally a problem for him, but he supposed it couldn’t hurt to work on the stationary position a few times.

It felt kind of silly, returning to the basics like this, but every time he blindly attempted quadruples, he’d fall out of his turn without making it halfway around. Junhui stood in fourth position where he could see his feet clearly in the mirrors and pliéd. Didn’t have that double bend problem, as far as he could see, and his knees were pointed outward over his toes, as they should be. He reset himself, shaking out his limbs, before readying and pliéd again, this time rising into a passé position immediately after he hit the bottom of his knee bend. The toes of his working leg were lifted up to the vicinity of his standing knee. He held that position for about a minute, core pulled tight so that his abs were firm and drawn both together and inward. He repeated that single motion of rising up onto his toes, as high as he could go, and hitting the solid retiré position as quickly as he could over and over again, until he felt confident that he could end up in the right pose with proper balance with his eyes closed.

So he tried again, this time closing his eyes, and reached out with his sense of balance to judge how far forward he needed to be to be completely over his leg, taking care not to swing his pelvis around. Everything was fastened tightly together by his muscles, and once he succeeded enough times, he opened his eyes again and landed.

It wasn’t surprising that he could maintain that while stationary. “The trick is to maintain it during the spinning action, huh?” His voice didn’t carry, as quiet as it was.

Just to remember the feeling of being balanced, he started off with a double pirouette, using the first revolution to settle into a neat, turned out relevé, and holding it for the next rotation. When his head had snapped back to face the point on the wall he was spotting and his body followed suit, he remained, hovering on his toes to see how long he could remain stable. It wasn’t gravity that lowered his foot in the end, but a conscious thought to land and pop the knee back into a quick low arabesque before finishing with his feet crossed in fifth position.

Easy.

For the sake of his confidence, Junhui did a few more double pirouettes starting and ending in a variety of feet positions, although always in passé position. He wasn’t exactly in a position to experiment with pirouettes á la seconde or in attitude. There was one that he wobbled out of, dropping his foot ungracefully so he wouldn’t fall flat on his face, but for the most part the turns felt secure, and he lowered his heel each time on his own terms.

By the time he was working on triples, his skin was warm, and his blood coursing through his body from the up and down movement of his calves, muscles squeezed tight all over in his glutes, abs, and back. Triples weren’t so bad either, fast or slow revolutions where he could land neatly. By the end of the third revolution, however, he didn’t have any more rotational force, and he was forced to put his foot down or be pulled down by the force of gravity.

That had been the problem every time he went for a quadruple turn in class, and he had stagnated at three rotations for months. Another time around just wasn’t in the cards by the time he was back in his starting position, both as a balance and energy issue. It didn’t make a lot of sense, considering he was able to hold his relevé for a longer duration of time than it would have taken to get in another two snaps of the head around.

Ugh, how was this stuff so easy for Wonwoo? He always looked so graceful and poised, like turning was a piece of cake. Like he could hang in midair during his jumps or up on his toes during turns for centuries.

Junhui shook himself out of his thoughts. He was supposed to be focused on triples, and he could get to the attempts of the quadruples, or thinking about how to attempt them, later. After landing neatly, always with silence rather than a thud, he alternated to his other leg. Switching between en dedans and en dehors, in both directions, on both legs, he determined that turning to the right from fourth standing on his left leg was his strongest turn, and thought he’d better tackle anything more challenging with his best leg forward, literally.

The first attempt ended before it could begin. He psyched himself out of the turn, releasing his leg almost immediately after the preparation to go into it, bouncing on the ball of his foot until he was facing forward again. The second attempt lifted into the air, but he fell over after about half a rotation past the third revolution. The third attempt had him put his foot down after just three turns. He groaned. “Fuck, why is this so hard?”

Wonwoo would have made him try to calm down, so he placed his hands on his head and he walked around in small circles, up and down the width of the studio. Maybe it was a psychological block, and if he just told himself he could do it enough times while staring down his reflection in the mirror, he really would be able to execute four turns.

No such luck. His pep talks to himself succeeded in doing nothing, and he slumped to a sitting position on the studio floor, head dropped to hang between his knees. After a good sulk and more heavy sighing, he stood again, changing his definition of the front of the room to be the mirrors. Over the years, it had become ingrained in him _not_ to practice pirouettes in front of the mirror because you’d focus on yourself instead of the place you were spotting, but maybe this way he could see if anything was out of alignment and causing him to stop at just three turns.

He didn’t notice it at first, because the change was so small, but he did spot the problem in the end. The leg that was held in retiré was dropping ever so slightly as he spun, and was probably throwing off his balance and energy. That must have been why the trouble came after three turns. In the first two revolutions, the change wasn’t big enough that it affected the way his weight was positioned, but by the time he was trying for the fourth, it was enough that he was no longer completely over the ball of his foot, and causing him to fall.

For his next turn, he tried to focus on keeping the height of his foot and knee as he turned, and he did get a half rotation past the triple. That was improvement, at least. Junhui kept at it for a while longer, until he was sweaty and tired and muscles complaining about repeating the same motions over and over again for such an extended period of time. He’d gotten a tiny bit better, and he wasn’t about to give up. Back at it the next day, and the after that, trying visualization exercises, ankle and core strengthening exercises.

Dancing hard right in the middle of midterm season, that was definitely how he imagined he’d be spending senior year. Well, at least he’d have better pirouettes. He’d get a smile out of Wonwoo for that, right?

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“Ah, my son just keeps growing more handsome every time I see him,” his mother cooed before he could even see her on the screen. The open vocal tones of Mandarin washed over him, sending tingles from the tips of his ears down to the tips of his toes. It always felt like entering a different world when he switched into using Chinese from Korean, like separate planets rather than separate countries. He held his phone further away from his head and laughed awkwardly, wondering when she’d finish adjusting positions so the sudden movements would stop leaving lag trails behind.

“Got the good genes from my gorgeous mother, of course,” Junhui recited dutifully, smiling when her face flashed by once. She was sitting in the living room of the condo in Shenzhen, redecorated beyond recognition since he left. But they had kept touch like this, through internet video chatting, and he had grown to seeing things change without him there. It was good that way, and would have been more uncomfortable if things were stagnant.

She laughed, the sound full and resonant even when distorted across the distance between them by the microphone and speakers of their phone. Her head was tilted back and she looked even healthier like this, so happy. “Did she teach you to be a smooth talker too?”

“Of course, she is, after all, the best mother in the world,” Junhui grinned, no longer feeling shy. It was his own mother, after all, and just because he hadn’t seen her face in a few weeks, didn’t mean that she had changed. The fact that she was family also had not changed. She knew him, maybe not as well as she would have liked, and he knew her, perhaps more than he allowed himself to acknowledge. Thinking about how his mother felt only ever led him down a dark spiral, but he was saved from it by his mother’s reply.

“Well, how is the best son in the world doing this week, may I ask?” She was dressed in a cream-coloured turtleneck, a lavender and mint green pattern decorating the shoulder and glittering underneath the light of the chandelier. It showed off her long, thin neck, and narrow shoulders. Her hair was short, and though it had taken some getting used to when she first cut it down to this length, it suited her at this age. She looked vivacious and happy, smiling with teeth and wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Yes, he decided, she looked good.

Junhui scoffed. “Don’t let Yangyang hear you say that, not when he knows the truth. He can always tell when anyone’s lying.” Feng Jun really was the better son between them, the one who still made and gave mother’s day presents, and tried to cook breakfast in bed whenever it was their mother or father’s birthday, helping out around the house with his tiny hands around a mop handle that was taller than he was. Or maybe not anymore. That was still the image he had of him, from three or four years ago now, when it came to doing chores on the weekend. But Feng Jun had grown since, the last time they had seen each other Junhui had been shocked by how quickly he was shooting up, and his mother diligently reported on the goings-on around his school and projects. Junhui’s memory of himself as a nine or ten-year-old was foggy, but he thought he had been pretty dutiful then as well, learning to cook and clean and take care of Feng Jun amongst the schoolwork and dancing and gigs his mother had found him. He had followed that act up with the act of leaving his parents behind to head for a different country, and that was ultimately the difference between the kind of person Junhui was compared to Feng Jun.

“Yangyang agrees that you’re the best son in the world,” his mother said. “He thinks you’re the best actor, the best dancer, the best brother, the best son. In his world, you hung the stars in the sky, and you whisper to the sun to rise every morning. That’s not going to change.” She lifted her chin up and brushed at her bangs, looking at the thumbnail of herself on the phone screen, before returning her focus to her son.

It was only minutes into their conversation, way too early to start crying. The corners of Junhui’s eyes stung and he held his eyes wide open to dry them, to hold back his emotions, glad that his mother was distracted. Too early, way too early. There were better times to start crying, for example, never. “Yangyang’s too old not to know the basic principles of astronomy,” Junhui joked, pretending to frown. “What school did you say he was going to again? Are you sure it’s any good? We can’t be fostering a lack of understanding fundamental science in our household, just because there’s a focus on the arts.”

His mother clucked her tongue. “Korea’s taken away your sense of humour, I see. That reminds me though, do you remember when I told you he got the main acting part in the school play?”

“Yes of course, and I told you it was completely unsurprising and asked you to congratulate him for me.”

“Well, with such an older brother for a role model, I suppose there wasn’t any other possible outcome. He lit up when he heard you were proud of him, by the way, just one sentence from his older brother and you can make his day. If only he were that responsive to your dad and I.” She shook her head, the beading of her necklace clacking gently, and her earrings flashing quickly. “Anyway, I filmed one of his parts, I’ll email the video to you along with the pictures your dad took of him in his costume. It was quite cute. I think you would have loved to see him dressed up like that.”

He smiled uneasily. “Yeah, I’m sure I would have. The pictures will make up for it though, I suppose.” He looked down at his fingers and swallowed gruffly. It wasn’t just his parents he had left behind, no longer playing the role of the filial son, it was also Feng Jun himself. Leaving behind his little brother had been the hardest part about moving from China, but once the decision was made he wasn’t the type of person to take things back. No matter what the people around him believed. “Wait, why on email, why can’t you just send them through WeChat?”

“No way!” She waved her hand in front of her face. “There’s too many, it would take too much time to send all of them. I have to email them to your grandparents anyway, they still don’t really know how to use their phones. Can I send it to the email you were using in China, or should I dig up the one you use for school?”

“That one was fine, I’m pretty sure I still know the password to it.” He groaned, placing his head in one hand. His smile was wry when he spoke. “Mom, it’s because you keep buying them all those new shiny smartphones. They’re too fancy for grandma and grandpa, you should get one of those big screen and big key phones that are easy to navigate so they can figure out how to use them. You were helpless with new technology once too, you know.”

“I can’t buy your grandparents second rate cellphones! They have to get whatever’s top of the line on the market, they deserve it after working so hard to raise all these kids and grandchildren.” Her head shook adamantly and Junhui sighed.

“I know you have their best interests at heart, but you’re not helping them any, mom.” He lifted his head back up and tilted it in the other direction.

His mom sighed at him and leaned backward in her seat. Her shoulders dropped a little as she folded her arms across her chest. “Junhui, you’re so far away I can never take care of you, so let me take care of someone else to feel useful, okay?” The question was asked in a tiny voice, thin and echoing between them.

The stinging in his eyes returned. “Mom, you’re, you do a lot for me okay? Calling me all the time, sending me food and money, and coming to visit me even though you’re busy. And besides, your son’s an adult. Or will be legally in two months. You don’t need to take care of me, it’s time for me to take care of you.”

She wasn’t nearly as invested in holding back her tears as he was, and sniffled openly, wiping at the wetness on her cheeks with a tissue. “You’re always going to be a baby in mom’s eyes. That’s never going to change. I still remember what you looked like on your first day of school at the dance academy, in your tights, smiling with a bunch of your teeth missing and clinging onto Lao Yao’s younger son’s hand so tightly. I love you. Big or small, a mother’s love for their child is always going to be like this.”

He swiveled in his chair, pulling his face out of sight from the camera and choked back the wave of emotion that erupted from his chest, blinking as fast as he could to dispel the wateriness of his eyes. His chest was constricted, his voice caught in his throat, and he forced himself to take deep inhales through his nose. If he opened his mouth now, he’d end up crying and making his mother worry.

“Wen Junhui, are you still okay?”

He swallowed and swallowed and swallowed, nothing but saliva and air, but it tasted like salt and smelled like ozone, and his face felt wet, even though when he brushed his fingers against his eyes, they were dry. He had managed to hold his tears again, and he felt the storm pass.

“Yeah, sorry, someone needs me for something, I have to go now,” he lied, voice hoarse. She was good at telling when he was lying, even across a pixelated screen, even when they had been apart for so long.

Her eyes went soft and she dabbed at her eyes again, her tears gone as well. She smiled gently. “You better go see what they need. Come visit soon okay? I miss you, we all do. I’ll make you so many delicious meals. Junhui, you know I just want you to be happy right? Are you happy?”

He had already told her one lie today, and that was already too many, frankly. She deserved better from him, she deserved better _than_ him, not a son who would run away.

Junhui thought about the past few months and told his mom the truth. “I’m happier than I have been in years.”

“Alright. I’ll send you the email now. Stay safe. Take care of yourself. Dress warmly. Eat well. You know what I say all the time, so don’t forget any of it.” He spoke the words with her, in the same order, having heard them so many times before. She laughed.

“I know, mom, I know.” He could barely keep looking at her face like this, so tender and exposed and vulnerable, and even if she seemed energetic, like this she seemed tired. It hurt, to know that he was causing that stress on her, but his guilt rose from knowing that he couldn’t do anything to stop that feeling.

“I love you, son.” And she knew, she knew that he couldn’t, and she didn’t want him to see how much it pained her. She was lying, and he didn’t realize it until now, how much she was hiding from him. Was he really just worse at being able to tell, or was he willingly, wilfully ignorant?

He smiled sadly. “Bye mom, I love you too.”

Ending the call didn’t end the conflicting thoughts and feelings in his head, jumbled together like a tornado had gone through it. Usually calls didn’t end this way, they’d joke and talk about what he’d eaten, and if he was lucky Feng Jun would be around and he’d ask him how school was going. Most of the time their calls were happy.

They were happy because Junhui wasn’t sad about leaving China, not the way his mother was sad he had left her. He missed her, he missed her dearly, her and his father and Feng Jun. But he didn’t miss—there was nothing else to miss. If he could, he would move his family to Korea, but that wasn’t realistic, and it wouldn’t make anyone but him pleased with their living arrangements. Junhui groaned and dug his knuckles against his eyelids, willing himself to think of nothing. He sat with his knees drawn up to his chest, blinking slowly, until his heartbeat had resumed its normal pace and his breathing finally evened out.

Still slightly down, he decided to boot up the computer. Seeing Feng Jun would definitely make things better, Feng Jun had that effect on everyone around him as soon as he smiled.

It took Junhui three tries to get the password right for the email his mother talked about. He hadn’t used it in years, not since he moved to Korea. The last time he had gotten or sent a message through this account must’ve been in finalizing the details of his application and acceptance into his current high school, or something about his residence.

Sure enough, there was one unread message when the screen finally loaded, sitting on top of a read message from the school administration, which was in the row above a message from ‘double M’. Or half a dozen messages from him. Junhui hadn’t seen any of his Chinese classmates after he left, and neither he nor them made any attempts to keep in touch. So his inbox was devoid of new messages, which was good because it meant he didn’t have reminders of a place he didn’t miss.

“Aww, my little brother’s going to grow up to be a looker.” Junhui cooed and laughed to himself at the sharp features of his little brother when they loaded. He sent off a quick series of messages to Feng Jun, complete with several animated happy faces, and ignored the pangs in his chest.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“What’s up?”

The voice was low and full and caught Junhui’s attention immediately. He looked up from his book, a translated copy of Asimov’s _Foundation’s Edge_ , and smiled with eyes heavily lidded. He looked back down, noted the page number he was on, and memorized it before shoving the book into the messenger bag he was carrying and using the leg that was tucked underneath him to push off the wall.

Wonwoo walked towards him with one hand in the pocket of his leather jacket, the fingers of his other hand wrapped loosely around his phone, ring on his index finger reflecting the screen that was still open on the messaging app to the text Junhui had sent him. Junhui hadn’t had to wait very long.

‘ _on a scale from 1-10 how bored are you right now?_ ’

That had been sent on a whim, and partially from knowing that Soonyoung and Jihoon were busy right now.

‘ _i’m calculating changes in thermal energy of reactions inside a calorimeter…so about an eleven_ ’

‘ _come outside your room _’__

__“Don’t you have midterms to study for?” Wonwoo asked, once they were standing nearly shoulder to shoulder, the phone back in Wonwoo’s pocket, along with his other hand. His head was tilted upward, and he turned it sideways to give Junhui a questioning look, mouth slightly open and eyebrows raised as he waited for an answer._ _

__“Yeah, of course. Got you to beat in all my classes, don’t I?” Junhui joked. He batted Wonwoo with his shoulder playfully, and hoisted his bag further up. “Come on.”_ _

__“Is this supposed to be a sabotaging technique? How’s that working out for you if you’re not studying either?” Wonwoo walked slightly behind Junhui, fingers drawn back out of his pockets to lightly skim over the railing as they descended the stairs to the main entrance of the dorms._ _

__“Let’s not use logic right now, if my brain had pain receptors, it’d be agonizing right now.”_ _

__Wonwoo laughed, mouth wide, and ran a hand through his hair. “Fair enough. Are we going to the studios?” He scraped at the base of his hairline with the backs of his fingers, voice dropping to a murmur as his eyes scanned over Junhui’s body from the back, taking in the loose hoodie and baggy sweatpants. “Other than the fact that we were just there yesterday, I’m not exactly dressed for that right now.”_ _

__“Nah.” Junhui turned and beckoned for him to walk faster before resuming speaking. “True, jeans and a leather jacket? You’re dressed enough to actually see people.” Junhui’s laughter was a gentle tinkling sound. “I can barely get myself to throw on any clothes at all during exam season, don’t know how you managed to pull a turtleneck over your head.” He angled his body so Wonwoo could tell they were turning the corner without explicitly saying so, and Wonwoo followed easily._ _

__“It makes me feel productive. Put together. The outfit, I mean, because the current state of the rest of my life is a mess. If you asked me how on top of my classes I was my answer would be that I’m so not on top of them, I’m basically underneath them.” Wonwoo shrugged. “It’s the one thing I have complete hold over when school gets unpredictable, you know?” The zipper of his jacket jangled as they walked, and he pulled it up. It was May, the sky overcast, but it wasn’t really warm enough to be wearing just one layer. He looked at Junhui’s thin long-sleeved shirt with bemusement._ _

__“Hm. Whatever you say, Wonwoo.” Junhui didn’t have anything to add after that. They had crossed the street, diverging from the normal path it took to get to school and Wonwoo realized he’d been following without knowing where they were headed._ _

__He kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk before breaking the silence. “Where are we going? You never said in your messages.”_ _

__“Oh did I forget to mention?” Junhui looked at him from the side, partially hidden behind the long fringe of his hair. “And you’ve just been walking along trusting me blindly? What if I really were trying to sabotage you so I could rank higher, and had plans to have you kidnapped or something?”_ _

__Wonwoo stuck his leg out sideways to trip Junhui up instead of replying. Junhui didn’t lose his balance fully but he slipped up on his footing and had to shuffle to regain his equilibrium. Wonwoo stopped to laugh at him, sticking his index finger out to point at Junhui, who grumbled loudly under his breath. Junhui didn’t wait for him, rolling his eyes and sighing, letting Wonwoo jog to catch up without saying a word._ _

__When they got to the end of the street, Wonwoo nudged him with his arm. “You still haven’t said.”_ _

__Junhui kept silent until after they had turned the block. He stopped suddenly, and flung out an arm, pointing across the street. “Are you hungry?” He dropped his arm back down and turned to Wonwoo expectantly._ _

__“Burgers?” Junhui noted the way Wonwoo perked up when he made his suggestion, face brightening and ears seeming to stand at attention. His back was straightened, his chin lifted, and his eyes widened._ _

__Junhui bit his lower lip. “Oh. Yeah, I mean, we can go for burgers, sure.”_ _

__Wonwoo turned from looking starry-eyed at the fast food restaurant and looked at Junhui with an earnest expression. “No, I need to stop eating so unhealthily. What’d you have in mind?”_ _

__“Um. Have you ever been to the Chinese restaurant beside the burger joint? I mean, everyone else always goes for fries and the Chinese place is always empty so I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve never been, but I was...” His mother’s mention of her cooking had lit a craving for Chinese food that Junhui had been harbouring for a week now. He had broken the lead of his mechanical pencil making cue cards for English and along with it had broken his ability to concentrate on his revision. That was what let him notice his grumbling stomach. And the fact that Jihoon and Soonyoung had disappeared from the common room, probably to make out in Soonyoung’s room, or something. “I’m just hungry though, and I like burgers too, so that’s cool.”_ _

__“I’ve never tried out the Chinese place, come on, you have to order me the best tasting dishes.” Wonwoo grabbed Junhui’s wrist and dragged him across the street, only letting go of him when he had pushed open the door and heard the chiming of the door. There was only one person sitting at a table, and the ahjumma welcomed him warmly. Wonwoo ducked his head down, and when he looked back up, she was bustling towards them to pat at Junhui’s hair._ _

__“Come here often, do you?” Wonwoo said in a joking tone, once she had returned to the kitchen to leave them with the menus. “Out of curiosity, what were you going to do if I wasn’t hungry?”_ _

__Junhui shrugged, sipping at his tea and not bothering to look at the list of options. “Make you watch me eat?” His eyes trailed toward the back and softened as he rested the corner of his jaw on a fist. “She’s kind of helped me along with the transition here, living in Korea, I mean. Knows what it’s like, I guess. Her and her husband, he’s the one who actually does the cooking.”_ _

__“It sounds to me like you transitioned pretty well.” Wonwoo placed the menu back on the table and pushed it forward, away from the edge. “Have a set of adoptive parents, a huge network of friends, and the grades, even despite the language barrier.”_ _

__Junhui snorted. “A huge network of acquaintances, maybe. Not really friends, I wouldn’t say. And it’s alright if I have time to think about things in Korean literature, and obviously math and physics and chemistry are all numbers and you don’t need language for that. But it’s hard to say anything meaningful if you don’t know the vocabulary for it.”_ _

__“But you’re so close to Soonyoung and Jihoon?” Wonwoo gave him a puzzled look, fingers playing with the corner of a napkin, shredding it into small strips._ _

__“Soonyoung and Jihoon are two people. And they’re it. Well, I guess Mingyu and Minghao. That’s four, total. And I’m really grateful for them, but it was really just luck. If we hadn’t been late to class and put in clean-up duties together, I don’t know if...well I guess I don’t regret it.” He quirked his lips to the side._ _

__The owner returned and Junhui gave their order. “One bowl of dan dan noodles, and one bowl of hot dry noodles, if you can make it,” he requested._ _

__“You know we can,” she said warmly, wiping her hands on her apron. “Does your friend want it a little milder than you? I know you like things as spicy as possible.”_ _

__Wonwoo held up both hands quickly. “I like spicy, make them extra spicy please!” He smiled up at her and folded his hands together in thanks. Junhui’s stomach lurched forward with hunger._ _

__She nodded and smiled back at him. “Absolutely, I’ll be right back.”_ _

__“I can believe that about Soonyoung, but Jihoon? Late for something? Was it in the morning and he couldn’t wake up or something? Or was Soonyoung up to something?” Wonwoo pulled out cutlery and laid it on the table in front of them, lining up the chopsticks neatly. “Wait, I think I remember this, wasn’t there an incident with a closet and being caught…well, I guess you’d know, kissing?”_ _

__Junhui chuckled. “You should ask Jihoon about it some day and see how red he turns whenever he’s forced to remember it. But bingo, that’s why they were late. And of course it was Soonyoung’s fault. If you gave Jihoon a chance, he could probably find a way to blame every one of his life problems on Soonyoung. I’m grateful to Soonyoung for it though, because I got lost and if they hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have opened the wrong door trying to figure out my way to class and seen them making out, and Soonyoung wouldn’t have flailed out an arm causing things to cascade on top of Jihoon, and I would have been trying to figure things out on sorting the stuff in storage for detention on my own instead of having two new friends.”_ _

__“Wait, _you_ were the one who walked in on them? Jihoon was complaining about the shelf of janitorial supplies for weeks, I didn’t know that you were the one up-ended all the stuff.” He laughed behind one hand._ _

__“Technically, and let me tell you that Jihoon and I agree on this subject, Soonyoung was the one who brought everything crashing down. _And_ it was his smart idea to pull Jihoon into a closet for a make out session on the first day of class.” Junhui said defensively. “Besides, I still can’t say I regret any of it happening because otherwise I probably wouldn’t have them as friends.”_ _

__“Hm. Soonyoung’s really empathetic though. He probably would have wanted to help you around school anyway. It was always him cheering people up in middle school as well.” Wonwoo leaned back in his seat, only now noticing the decor on the walls._ _

__“Is that when you guys met? Were you in the same class?”_ _

__“Yup. It wasn’t nearly as interesting an experience as walking in on them making out and having the entire closet fall down on them could possibly be, but let me tell you, Soonyoung was a handful even back then.” He snorted to himself, shaking his head. “I don’t know why, but I thought he’d be less of a troublemaker in high school, and that was completely irrational. Why would he have changed in the course of a year?” He flashed his eyes wide and a look of exasperation flittered across his face. “His personality hasn’t changed at all. Although I think Jihoon’s taught him restraint. Kind of. It’s a work in progress that probably started around the same time they realized they were in love with each other.” His eyes narrowed and he looked thoughtfully at the wall._ _

__Their dishes arrived, along with a pat on their heads. Junhui prodded both bowls closer to Wonwoo. “Try both, and take whichever one you like,” he said eagerly, a single chopstick in each hand as he watched Wonwoo lift noodles up to his mouth. Junhui stuck one chopstick between his lips as he waited for the assessment, even though it wasn’t his cooking. It still felt like his pride was on the line, somehow._ _

__Wonwoo chewed each mouthful slowly after blowing air to cool the food. “What happens if I like both?” He smirked, and Junhui’s stomach flopped about uncomfortably. He hadn’t realized he was starving._ _

__He tore his eyes away from Wonwoo’s mouth. “Ahjumma! Can we get another bowl of dan dan noodles?” He yelled, waving his hands at Wonwoo to tell him to go ahead with eating both bowls without looking back at him. “Not hungry my ass,” he muttered quietly._ _

__“You’re gonna pay for all this, right?” Wonwoo waggled his eyebrows and started shovelling the food into his mouth, looking up through his eyelashes so he could catch Junhui scowling or protesting and laugh at him. The dan dan noodles numbed his tongue and lips, and he set those aside for second, saving the small bits of meat. The hot dry noodles were more savoury, but also had a distinct sweetness to them. They were chewy and thick, a little oily, and went well with the crunch of the pickled vegetables._ _

__“Whatever, asshole.” Junhui stole a piece of chopped carrot from Wonwoo and savoured it for a long time as he waited for his own noodles. “In China I used to have this all the time for breakfast. Not both, I mean, just noodles. There’s five famous types from different parts of the country, and then hot beef rice noodle soup, so I’d alternate depending on the day and my mood.” He wasn’t sure Wonwoo was even paying attention, given how fast he was eating, but Junhui didn’t mind. “Everyone would sit at makeshift tables along the streets, salarymen, kids, grannies, whoever. Sometimes you’d get groups of people but usually I ate alone. It was a fast meal, and it meant I didn’t have to wake up and cook, or have my mother wake up earlier than she needed to in order to make me breakfast.”_ _

__“Do you miss it there? China, I mean.” Wonwoo asked, barely taking a break to finish his words before he was chewing noisily again._ _

__“No.” Junhui didn’t expand on his answer, tapping a rhythmic pattern on the table with the butt end of his chopsticks._ _

__By the time Junhui’s food arrived, Wonwoo was already finishing up his first order._ _

__He exhaled, tongue hanging out of his mouth. “It’s good. I liked that. It wasn’t that spicy though?” The bowl was empty, not even a stray piece of vegetable or seasoning remaining. “Treat me to more meals,” he joked._ _

__Junhui rolled his eyes. “Your appetite is ridiculous. I’ll order you things, but pay for them yourself. Finish the other one, see if you’re still talking then.” He mixed the noodles in the chilli oil sauce they came in, and spun them around his chopsticks to slurp down as much as possible in a single bite. The sharpness of the peppercorn hit his tongue immediately, its presence unmistakable even in the red, oily, soup. He felt it opening up his sinuses in a way most Korean dishes didn’t. A lot of hot Korean food was also sweet, which muted the spiciness that Junhui loved._ _

__“Alright, fine, I guess my mouth is tingling.” Wonwoo wiped the red oil off his lips with a napkin, and tossed it into his second empty bowl. He finished the tea in his cup and grimaced, sticking his tongue out of his mouth and looking down at it with annoyance._ _

__“To be perfectly honest, I’m really impressed. Whenever I bring Soonyoung or Jihoon here I always have to ask for things to be made mild, and even then he’s sweating buckets by the end. Even Minghao’s not great at handling things that are hot, and he always ends up ordering non-spicy food.” Junhui was still working away at his noodles._ _

__“What about Mingyu?” Wonwoo stretched his arms out behind him before he brought his hands to rest between his thighs, legs crossed._ _

__Junhui paused for a moment, looking up with his lips downturned. “I don’t think I’ve ever taken him here.”_ _

__“Oh, really? Well, Soonyoung can’t eat spicy food at all, so I don’t know if it’s fair to compare us. I basically eat hot sauce out of the jar.” Wonwoo’s lips were still a little bit numb, but his stomach was full, and his overall feeling was one of satisfaction._ _

__To Wonwoo’s surprise, Junhui really did pay for everything. “You didn’t have to, it was just a joke, you know that right?” He pushed Junhui over. “Now you’re going to have to bring me back here so I can repay the favour.”_ _

__“It’s fine,” Junhui said, holding the door open behind up. “I know I cut into your valuable studying time, so there was a price.”_ _

__Wonwoo stood on the pavement outdoors and reached up over his head toward the grey clouds, fingers splayed apart and back arched. His eyes were closed, mouth curved. He looked like a sunbathing cat to Junhui. “That’s very true. You’ve set me back now,” he glanced down at his watch, “like two hours, at least. That means I’m going to sleep even later tonight, thanks to you, and I’m already sleep deprived enough as it is.”_ _

__They walked back at a leisurely pace, elbows close enough to brush if either of them strayed from a straight line. “Have you ever considered, you know, just sleeping more?”_ _

__“An interesting idea.” Wonwoo snorted. “Sounds like it might be fun, I guess I’ll give it a shot one day.”_ _

__“Actually, I don’t know anymore. If I were you I’d reconsider it.” Junhui tapped his nose. “Babies sleep a lot, and they’re not all that bright. I don’t know if you should take that risk.”_ _

__Wonwoo stopped walking and burst into laughter, his toothy grin spreading his mouth wide across his face, and his eyes folded into crescents. He bent over, hands braced on his thighs as he tried to catch his breath from laughing so hard, stomach heaving. The loudness echoed against the walls of the buildings lining the streets, as empty as they were from cars and people._ _

__Junhui blinked. “Was it something I said?”_ _

__“Yes,” Wonwoo wheezed. He choked on his own laughter, which sent him into another fit of giggles, one hand covering his mouth as he straightened up, the other on his stomach, holding his belly as his entire body shook with amusement._ _

__There was something extremely pleasing about being able to make Wonwoo laugh like that, Junhui decided, and the smugness that settled into his tone was hard to hide. “You’re _weird_ , that wasn’t even funny.” Junhui slapped Wonwoo on the back and resumed walking, shaking his head as he went. _ _

__“Ahh!” Wonwoo pounced forward to grab at either side of Junhui’s waist, fingers digging into firm muscle and causing Junhui to yelp and jump up with surprise and pain. He turned around, elbowing Wonwoo in the sternum and Wonwoo started laughing again. “Nooo stop! Please! Stop!” He was half-laughing, half-yelling as Junhui’s fingers pushed against his ribcage. With one last poke to Wonwoo’s bellybutton, Junhui finally turned back around._ _

__“Martial arts master, I’m telling you.” Junhui warned, sticking his nose up into the air._ _

__“Sure you are. Anyway, you’re weirder,” Wonwoo declared, but his words were belied by the smile formed by his lips and the arm that he had slung around Junhui’s neck, hand dangling by his collarbone._ _

__“Fine, we’re both weird. Only weirdos can put up with each other, right?” Junhui turned to look at Wonwoo for a reply, but the smile had slid right off Wonwoo’s face, fast enough that it gave Junhui whiplash. “What?”_ _

__Wonwoo had very suddenly tucked himself closer to Junhui’s back, hand tightening painful around his shoulder as he pressed his chest against Junhui’s back, their legs close enough to trip over each other. Junhui would have pushed him off, but the expression on Wonwoo’s face and the firm grip around his arm made him look up to see whatever Wonwoo had seen first._ _

__His eyes were focused ahead of them to the end of the road, where a middle-aged woman was walking her dog. It was a large doberman, tall enough to reach Junhui’s hips, at the very least, mix of dark and light fur. The doberman was on a leash, ears perked upward, and tail wagging proudly behind him._ _

__Oh._ _

__Junhui maneuvered them sideways until they were walking on the road instead of the sidewalk, positioning his body between Wonwoo and the dog. He covered Wonwoo’s hand with his own. When they got close enough that Wonwoo was stiff around him, Junhui slid a hand around Wonwoo’s back to hold him firmly at the waist, squeezed lightly and rubbed his hand up and down his side comfortingly, letting Wonwoo lean on him and supporting his weight easily. Wonwoo’s eyes were fixed dead ahead as they walked past each other, lips flat._ _

__He didn’t let go of Wonwoo afterward, even when they shifted back onto the sidewalk, and it wasn’t until they made it another three blocks down and Wonwoo had softened around him that he finally spoke. “Not a fan?” Junhui asked lightly. His hand was still rubbing soothing circles along the edge of Wonwoo’s abdomen, just above his hip._ _

__“No,” Wonwoo said tightly. He buried his face against Junhui’s neck, breathing out, and the warmth tickled Junhui but he didn’t laugh or flinch. After one last puff of air, Wonwoo untangled himself from Junhui, detaching his hand slowly, his fingertips lingering against the cotton. “I’m okay with small dogs,” he said, voice rough._ _

__Junhui looked at him carefully without turning his head or making it obvious. “You don’t have to explain yourself.” His tone was gentle, calm._ _

__“I know but I...” Wonwoo cleared his throat. “When I was in first grade, my cousin found a litter of puppies and wanted to keep one. He picked one up and the the mother found us, obviously got angry, and ended up chasing after us. My little brother was smallest and slowest and she bit his leg. He was alright, and he doesn’t really remember it, but I can vividly still see the blood, and the memory, to this day that memory is sharp. I can feel the same fear I felt then. It’s fine if they’re small and cute, but anything that looks like it could be as fast as me, or has really big teeth...” He shuddered involuntarily and Junhui softly bumped their hips together._ _

__“It’d be weirder if you didn’t have anything you were scared of, wouldn’t it? Anyway, I’m scared of a lot of things.” Junhui held up a hand to count them, but had to pause in order to think._ _

__“Yeah? Like what?” Wonwoo prompted, trying to lose the waver in his voice._ _

__Junhui snapped his fingers together. “You, for one. Before we started the project, I thought I was going to get devoured by all your fans. I was terrified of messing up even the tiniest thing to give all your admirers an excuse to eat me.”_ _

__“They’re not really...admirers...they just follow along because someone told them some lie about me being good at dancing or something.” Wonwoo scowled._ _

__“Yeah but you _are_ good,” Junhui countered. _ _

__Wonwoo groaned. “This is not something I want to fight over, let’s just agree to disagree and move on.”_ _

__“Alright alright, let’s just hurry up, it’s going to rain soon.” He picked up his walking speed a little, waiting for Wonwoo to catch up before lengthening his strides._ _

__There was a nudge at his rib cage. “How can you tell?”_ _

__“I can smell it.” Junhui tapped the side of his nose with one finger, a crooked smirk on his face that didn’t quite reach his eyes._ _

__“ _Smell_ it?” _ _

__Junhui hummed in affirmation and let the silence between them settle against his skin, a protective layer between him and the humid air. They weren’t all that far from the dorms again, and he wondered if there would be any open carrels at this time, or if he’d have to go back to studying in his room. Mid-afternoon, someone must have given up to take a nap by now._ _

__“Hey.” Wonwoo flicked Junhui’s ear. “Thanks.”_ _

__He turned his head and spread out his hands in question. “For what? You said you were gonna pay me back by buying me a meal next time, remember?” Junhui teased. His insides fluttered._ _

__Wonwoo shook his head. “No, I mean, yeah sure I’ll do that. But thanks for...Everyone else usually laughs at me for being scared of nothing.”_ _

__Junhui swiped his keycard in front of the reader and shrugged, nonchalant. “Well, I guess I’m special since I didn’t react like everyone else.”_ _

__“Yeah,” Wonwoo said, smiling. “Yeah, I guess you are.” Maybe Junhui should have eaten his noodles slower, his stomach felt really queasy all of a sudden, probably from being unable to digest spicy food that quickly. Not any other reason. Definitely not._ _

__In the distance, there was a rumble of thunder._ _

__

 

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“So at this point most of the way through the first semester, you’re expected to have at least a minute of choreography prepared, as you know because you’ve both read the syllabus very carefully, in order to be on track to complete your project on time for the final showcase. Ideally, you would have more than that, but the schedule is flexible for any problems getting started. If you are having trouble working together, or if for any reason need help, this is a good time to ask for it.” Advisor Han sat in his rolling leather high back chair, holding a sheet of paper with their names on it in front of him, and peered up at Junhui and Wonwoo over his glasses. 

It was completely inappropriate for Junhui to want to laugh in front of their teacher, but the urge bubbled in him. His amusement stemmed from the timing of the situation. If someone had asked them two months ago if they needed help working together, the answer would have been a resounding yes, and if you could, please change my partner. But now, well, it was too late, they had moved on. He kept quiet, forcing the mirth down.

“We have well over two minutes of choreography prepared, nearly three at this point,” Wonwoo said matter-of-factly. His hands were clasped behind his back, feet slightly apart as he stood, back ramrod straight. All of the elements of a model student.

Han squinted at him, and then turned his scrutiny onto Junhui. He smiled wryly. “You don’t have to pretend to have been using your time productively if you haven’t actually, this is when I can give you tips and things to help you. It’s better to be honest now, than to pay for it when you have a poorly put together piece, slapdash work, and get a bad mark on it next term.”

Junhui shook his head. “It’s the truth, seonsaeng-nim. We’ve really been working hard together and managing our time.” He hoped his smile would be reassuring, but their advisor sighed and took off his glasses, rubbing at them with the hem of his shirt.

He replaced his glasses and steepled his fingers together, leaning back in his chair. “Well, if you don’t have anything else to say to me…I’m not actually supposed to help you with the dancing itself, but you should come to me if you have any problems, okay? That way I can connect you with one of the teachers. And obviously, if you have any non-dance related questions, you should definitely come to me. Oh, I also have pamphlets on conflict resolution if you want to check these out...” He shoved a bunch of documents into their hands and shooed them out the door, muttering under his breath as he closed it behind them.

“He totally thinks we’re lying.” As soon as they were outside, Junhui blurted the words out and started laughing. He stared down at the brochure in his hand, large comic book font and gaudy colours. He flipped it over and skimmed the text, snorting.

Wonwoo slapped a hand over Junhui’s mouth, and pointed the index finger of his other hand at Junhui’s face. It was close enough that Junhui could see the fine hairs across the skin just past Wonwoo’s knuckles, and the accusatory finger didn’t make him want to stop laughing any less. “Stop laughing! He’ll actually think we’re lying if he hears you. Hey, ow!” He retracted his hand when Junhui bit at the flesh above the muscles connecting his thumb, shaking out his hand to get rid of the stinging.

He stuffed the glossy paper into one of the side pockets of his bag. “But we weren’t! There’s no reason to feel guilty when we were telling the truth.” Junhui pouted and felt no remorse for causing Wonwoo’s palm to throb with pain.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” Wonwoo complained, sliding his hand over the lower half of Junhui’s face to swipe off his expression. “You can be so dense about other people’s perspectives sometimes.” He wrapped his fingers firmly around Junhui’s wrist and dragged him away from the office area.

“I’m super smart!” Junhui protested. “I’m really good at math and numbers. In fact, I distinctly remember that I took number one over you in calculus again on the midterm exams…” He was pouting again, although there was a twinkle in his eye, and Wonwoo rubbed his hand all over his face to get him to stop.

“You’re missing the point again.” He snorted and tilted his head up at the stairs. “Anyway, do you have time before dinner? There’s something I wanted to try out, but we can do it Saturday if you’re busy.”

“Lead the way,” Junhui said, slipping an arm between Wonwoo’s torso and his elbow so their arms were locked together. He leaned against him up the first few steps.

“Get off me, you’re so heavy,” Wonwoo whined, shoving Junhui into the railing and racing up the stairs with laughter when Junhui swore, vowing to get him back.

Junhui’s excitement and goodwill, however, dissipated when Wonwoo explained his idea.

“So let me make sure I understand and we’re not just having a miscommunication problem because of my Korean. You’re telling me you want to, essentially, do a barrel roll over my back.”

“You got it.” Wonwoo clapped his hands together once, the sound muffled by the sleeves of his shirt covering his palms. “It’ll be a cool windmill effect, and I think visually it’ll really match that one broken chord that almost sounds like a glissando at the climax of the piece really.” He nodded enthusiastically at his own suggestion and it was hard to say no to that excitement.

Junhui furrowed his eyebrows, nonetheless, stomach filled with anxiety. “Most people hear the word ‘glissando’ and think, ‘hey that sounds like the word glissade!’ not ‘hey let’s start learning aerials from scratch even though neither of us have any experience whatsoever with this style of dance.’” He left his mouth slightly open after he finished speaking, a single eyebrow raised as high as he could get it to go to express his disbelief.

Wonwoo shrugged. “Yeah, and most people get average marks, but we’re going to get the highest grade in the class for our choreography. Come on, maybe it won’t work, but maybe it’ll be really cool. Can we just try it?”

“No way. This is a terrible idea. One of us is going to break a neck.” Even as the words came out of his mouth, Junhui shrugged his bag off his shoulders and planted his feet half a metre apart, toes pointing forward and knees slightly bent. He flattened his back until it was parallel to the ground, his head dropped further down and hair hanging in a curtain around his face. Both his hands were placed on his thighs. “Alright, do your worst.”

Wonwoo pushed up his sleeves and took a step backward. He skirted out of his running start when Junhui rose and stuck out both his hands.

He covered his chest with both hands. “Junhui! Don’t do that! You scared me. That’s how we’re going to get injured. Just stay down.”

“Okay, okay, I just want it on record that this was your idea and not mine.” Junhui shook his head sadly, shaking his legs out to warm them in preparation.

“Yes, fine! Get back in position.”

Junhui stood again, before Wonwoo even made it back to his starting spot. “Are you sure you don’t want to like warm up or something? Lay out the mats?”

Wonwoo rolled his eyes. “Junhui, just get down.”

With his hands on his hips, Junhui inhaled and exhaled deeply before hanging back down into the flattened position. He braced himself.

The roll took all the air out of Junhui, his torso depressing only slightly under Wonwoo’s weight, mostly from the pointiness and shock than from Wonwoo being heavy. Wonwoo landed with a thud and Junhui screamed inside his head. “Please don’t tell me you just blew out both your kneecaps or something.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I just landed on both feet, which wasn’t the plan, but the point is I can totally roll over your back without hurting myself.” He patted himself down and twisted his torso around, getting the rotational movement in his waist looser.

“Maybe not yourself, sure, but instead your vertebrae just stabbed themselves into my spine. I’m going to have bruises on my back, Wonwoo.” Junhui massaged the muscles of his lower back gingerly, and rolled his shoulders.

Wonwoo was busy visualizing his next attempt and the positions that his legs would have to be in to achieve the fanning effect he was going for. “Uhuh. Again.”

Junhui grimaced, curved his back to stretch it out, and resumed his new occupation as a table.

It didn’t take Wonwoo very long to get the over-the-back roll down, and it didn’t require very much out of Junhui to facilitate it, although there was a twinge in his waist muscles from carrying more weight than he was used to.

“Okay, hang on, I want you to see what it looks like so you can say whether or not it actually fits into the piece.” Wonwoo headed off to prop his phone up with some books on top of the shelf for the speakers.

There was a gentle cracking sound in his hips when they did the aerial again for the camera, Junhui’s body grumbling as from the repeated use. Wonwoo patted his back lightly, as Junhui slowly stood up again.

“We’ll have to figure out how to transition in and out of this but it looks cool, right?” Wonwoo pressed, their heads huddled together over the screen, observing the video recording.

“I guess,” Junhui agreed reluctantly. He personally believed it would have looked better if Wonwoo had just done a series of unassisted barrel turns in sequence, especially because he could get so much lift on the jump. Wonwoo drummed his fingers against Junhui’s shoulder happily, and Junhui begrudgingly admitted to himself that the swooping arc of his legs were visually effective and he supposed did work with the music.

“I’m kinda excited. Everything looks great so far, but the last third of this is going to be amazing. We’ve accomplished a lot.” His grin was partially triumphant, but rather than looking cold and smug, he came off as warm and proud. He dropped his voice a little. “Thank you for your hard work.” Like Junhui had somehow vaulted them up, rather than simply being along for the ride.

Before he could respond, someone was calling his name. More precisely, Soohee shrieked it. “Wen Junhui! You were supposed to be downstairs twenty minutes ago! Hyejin and I have been looking everywhere for you, what are you even doing?”

Junhui’s expression went from taken aback to sheepish in seconds. He had forgotten that he had agreed to meet up with her today, swept along by Wonwoo’s excitement.

Wonwoo elbowed him in the stomach. He whispered furiously, hand cupped around Junhui’s ear, and speaking close enough that the air tickled his skin. “You said you weren’t busy! I don’t want to be involved with you standing up girls!”

“Sorry, I’ll be right there!” Junhui called out to the two of them. He turned back to Wonwoo scratching his neck awkwardly and whispered, “Did I? Sorry to cut this short. I can come back later, so we can continue after dinner?”

Wonwoo shook his head and pushed Junhui toward the exit, a sour expression on his face even before he managed to look away. “No, we’ll get back to it on Saturday. I have to go shopping with Mingyu afterward.”

“Not study?” Junhui mock gasped, and Wonwoo kneed him in the ass for it.

“Just _go_!”

Wonwoo watched Junhui grab his bag on the way out and apologize to Soohee at the door, expression stormy. He stomped to his own things, grabbing his stuff with gusto, and pulling out a plastic water bottle and chugging as he waited until their conversation just outside the door finished before making his way to leave as well. He ended up overhearing it anyway.

“It’s fine, you dummy,” Soohee said, smacking his arm. Wonwoo didn’t know if Junhui winced, but Wonwoo winced on his behalf, and then glared at the wall.

“Is it alright with you if I tag along?” Hyejin, a vocal major who Junhui was only vaguely acquainted with, asked anxiously. Wonwoo didn’t get to see her flittering about restlessly, shoes scuffing the floor, hands clutched tightly around Soohee’s arm.

But he did hear Junhui’s voice, which was light and airy. “If it’s alright with Soohee, I don’t mind.” Wonwoo could imagine the expression on his face, all suave and smirking.

“See? Told you he was a nice guy.” Fucking hell.

Wonwoo crumpled the plastic with his fingers, feeling the pointy edges dig into the flesh of his palm, and dripping water on the floor from being destroyed by Wonwoo’s hand. He scowled, tossed the entire thing into the trash swore out loud.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

Two of the girls in the year below were standing with Minghao outside his room when Junhui got back from his first cramming session in June. His waist had been sore so he’d stopped to grab an icepack before returning to his room for more studying, and hadn’t expected a crowd to be waiting for him.

“…pretty sure I aced the quiz,” Jieqiong was saying, “which was really unexpected considering—”

“Considering you passed out the entire night beforehand and spent it sleeping while the rest of us were slaving away at our textbooks? Share your language skills with me! How can you be doing that amazingly in English? And I’m pretty sure you’re doing better than me in Korean too.” Minyoung had her arms folded across her chest, but she was smiling as she spoke.

Jieqiong shook her head and prodded Minyoung’s cheek. “Nah, anyway, you didn’t say how you did. It wasn’t that bad, was it?”

“No, I know I definitely made some mistakes, but I survived.” Her lips quirked higher up, revealing her teeth, and she relaxed her arms.

Jieqiong pumped her fist in the air. “Yes! We should go see a movie this weekend as a reward, you know, before we turn into ugly zombies like the graduating grade.”

Junhui cleared his throat to make his presence known, still pressing the ice pack to his back. “What was that about us seniors being ugly, Xiao Zhou?” He lifted an eyebrow mildly.

The hand on its way back to her side froze for a moment. “Nothing!” She yelped, whirling around to bow her head at him.

He laughed. “Alright, I’ll let it go this once. Did you need something?”

“Just giving back the rest of your medicine. I didn’t have that much of the good stuff because I’ve been too restless for tea, but I did take a fair number of the cough drops.” Jieqiong held out a small box of Chinese herbal remedies for colds that Junhui kept around at all times. Not that they didn’t have hospitals where they could get prescriptions near the school, or that there weren’t Korean pharmacies stocking stuff for non-serious illnesses, but with the medication his mom sent from China, he just already knew what worked or didn’t work for his body. She had heard about his collection from Minghao and asked to have some stuff a few weeks ago and he’d forgotten all about it. He took the box from her and tucked it under one elbow.

“Glad you’re feeling better,” Junhui said.

“Yup! Thanks! We’re just going to go now,” she said quickly, tugging on Minyoung’s arm. She waved to Minghao, frowned, and adjusted his collar. He smiled and flicked her forehead, reminded her that she was about to leave and she turned around again quickly, bowing to Junhui before she shuffled down the hallway, Minyoung in tow.

“Alright, your turn.” Junhui said, hoisting the box up after watching them turn the corner. “Did you need something?”

Minghao scoffed and swiped Junhui’s keycard that was dangling from his fingers, to let himself into Junhui’s room. “You should take better care of your back.”

He opened his mouth to yell at him and closed it again without saying anything, too exhausted to be angry. He sighed and kicked the door open wider so he could walk through with his stuff easily. Minghao jumped onto Junhui’s bed and dumped out the contents of his bag, sprawling books everywhere. Junhui set the box down on top of a shelf and muttered, “Honestly, the insolence…”

Junhui collapsed into his chair and pulled out the things he wanted to work on tonight, piling them neatly on a corner of his desk before picking up his pencil and laying out a highlighter, ready to get started. It had been a pretty tiring day, all the dancing in class considered, and his body was physically exhausted even if he still felt mentally alert. He read over his notes with his head pillowed against his arm, and wrote messily, brain moving faster than his fingers and hands.

After getting through all of the subjects except math and physics, his favourites, which he had saved for last on purpose, Junhui stretched, putting the now room temperature ice pack on the desk.

“Done already? It’s only midnight.” Wonwoo’s voice startled Junhui into nearly jabbing himself in the eye with the back of his pencil. He spun around in his chair and stared at Wonwoo, who was reading something rested against his knee while lying down on Junhui’s bed, his head rested on Minghao’s thigh.

“How did you even get in here?” Junhui blurted from confusion.

Wonwoo flicked the page, and looked up. His face was passive, mouth shaped in a flat sort of line. One of his hands was flipping a pencil around in circles, and he used it to point at the open door before returning his attention to his notebook.

“Okay then _when_ did you get here? You almost scared me to death!” His hands were tight around the back of his chair.

Wonwoo looked up again and shrugged at him. “Hours ago.”

Junhui flapped his hands, palms facing upward, and shook his head. “What are you even doing?”

Minghao piped up, “My leg is my own, Junhui-hyung, and Wonwoo-hyung is welcome to use it as a pillow if he likes.”

“I’m studying,” Wonwoo added, although he grinned at Minghao’s words.

Junhui’s bewilderment pooled in his stomach, the shock catching up to him as he felt a little light headed. “But this is my room?”

“Is that a question?” Minghao’s voice was mild, and he didn’t look up from copying something out. The sound of his pencil against his paper was rhythmic, as he practiced by rote rehearsal in order to memorize the words.

“No?” He scratched at his back, and looked at both of them, still not quite sure what he was seeing.

“That sounded like a question to me,” Minghao looked up and wiggled his leg a little. “What do you think, Wonwoo-hyung?”

Wonwoo laughed. “Definitely a question.” He made eye contact with a scowling Junhui, his chin tilted up, dark eyelashes fluttering as he blinked quickly. “Do you mind me being here? I can leave.”

Minghao batted at Wonwoo’s arm. “No, no, don’t do that. Junhui-hyung already bullies me enough, he shouldn’t be allowed to bully you too.” He steamrolled over Junhui’s answer, turning to fix him with a look. “Anyway, no one can tell whether or not this is your room because there’s literally no decorations whatsoever. You don’t have a single picture here. Not of anyone. Not a poster of a movie or band you like, no picture frames of your family, no polaroids of your friends. So really, this could be anyone’s room.”

Junhui rolled his eyes and crossed his arms defensively. Well, it wasn’t like he was going to put up pictures of Mingming, or something. “Wow, not all of us can be you, having a room filled with pictures from China. Besides, who gets photos printed nowadays? Normal people just keep pictures on your phone.”

Minghao let his eyes wander around the room, staring at the blank walls pointedly, and returned to the topic at hand. “You don’t have pictures that aren’t food or plants on your phone, hyung.”

“Plants?” Wonwoo asked, abandoning his notes and turning onto his stomach, resting the weight of his head on his hands, elbows sinking into the mattress.

“He’s into like nature and stuff,” Minghao said dismissively, waving a hand. “Anyway, that’s not my point, you should like make this more lived-in. I guess it’s kinda late considering you only have half a school year left, but you don’t even have pictures of your little brother around.”

“And you don’t have pictures of me lying around your room.” He tried to keep his tone light, but Junhui was feeling on edge. “It’s not a big deal, it doesn’t mean anything, I like having bare walls and flat surfaces. Makes things seem neat and tidy.”

Minghao shrugged and returned to his notebook. His pencil had reached the bottom of the page and he shut it with a thud.

“Whatever, I’m done so I’m heading off to bed.” He packed up his stuff leisurely, while Wonwoo watched, and Junhui watched Wonwoo watching him. Junhui was still a little lost at seeing people crowding around or into his room, instead of Jihoon or Soonyoung’s, which were the normal places to hang out, the normal people who attracted others to them. 

“Juniors,” Wonwoo said, clucking his tongue, “I don’t remember the last time I slept.” His nose was buried in his notebook again, hiding his smirk. 

“So you didn’t risk following in the footsteps of babies after all,” Junhui teased.

Minghao whirled around at Wonwoo’s explosive laughter to see him rolling around on the bed with his hands clutched to his sides. “What just happened, why are you laughing?”

Junhui snorted and tossed his eraser at Wonwoo’s head. “Inside joke,” he muttered at Minghao, shaking his head at Wonwoo fondly. “Weren’t you leaving?”

“Yeah but,” He pouted and rapped his knuckles against the surface of the door with impatience, “You should explain it to me—Wait I just remembered why I came by here in the first place!”

“What, you mean your sole purpose in life wasn’t to invade my space and be annoying?”

“You forgot being cute, Junie-hyung.” Minghao lifted the corners of his lips innocently, and angled his head to show off his pointy chin and large eyes.

Junhui nodded. “Right and being cute, wait, no. No! I take that back, you tricked me.”

“Anyway,” Minghao said over Junhui’s protests, “I have this b-boying competition coming up in July and I was wondering if you wanted to come see it. It’s right after exams so don’t say you’ll be too busy studying.”

“Sure, sounds fun.” Junhui flashed him a thumbs up with both hands. “Text me the date and time?”

“Obviously.” Minghao looked down at Wonwoo, who had finally stopped rolling around, and now looked half-asleep on Junhui’s bed. “Wonwoo-hyung, you’ll come too right?”

Wonwoo peaked open an eye and waved his hand amicably, too tired for the effort it would take to vocalize a yes in agreement.

“How are you going to practice for it if it’s right after exams?” Junhui asked.

“Prioritizing, time management, and having practiced like all the time leading up to it? Besides, not all of us are obsessed with going to some top tier university like you are, there are other things you can do after high school.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything, just don’t want you to burn out from having too many commitments. You’re still doing the martial arts club demonstrations, so there’s a lot on your plate.” Junhui stood and tossed Minghao the icepack he was using from before. “Toss that in the freezer in the kitchen for me on your way out, would you?”

Minghao tsk-ed but held onto it. “I’m not your slave. Clean up after yourself.” He looked down at his hand and frowned. “Or a baby for that matter, I don’t need you turning into a mother hen on me, I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, yeah, brat. I’ll stop thinking of you as a small minion when you start telling me all those secrets you’ve yet to reveal.” Junhui glared at him jokingly.

“In your dreams, hyung!” Minghao stuck out his tongue at him and ran down the hallway so Junhui couldn’t toss something else at his face, leaving the door still open. 

He hung onto the door handle, and turned it around in his hand a few times. “Are you staying?”

Both of Wonwoo’s eyes were open, his expression neutral. “You never did say whether or not you wanted me to leave.” His limbs were loosely held around him, but his shoulders were tense, like he was ready to vault off the bed at any second. It looked wrong to Junhui, seeing him tight instead of completely at ease in his body the way he normally was. He swallowed

“No, of course not.” He stepped backward. “I wasn’t angry that you showed up, if that’s what you were worried about, I was just surprised I didn’t realize you coming in.” 

Wonwoo snorted at him, eyes lazily opened halfway, and pursed his lips. He shuffled his stuff together and stood. “Let’s switch. I want the desk. You take the bed.” He waved his hand pointedly and walked over to drop his books onto the table, and handed Junhui his math and physics notebooks before turning around and sitting stiffly, hand gripped tightly around the pencil, and head facing straight instead of looking down into his readings. 

Junhui dropped his weight onto the bed and leaned back against the wall. It was true that he wasn’t that good at reading other people’s words, but he was good at reading their body language. “Are you tired?” He prompted gently. “I know we’ve talked about not having time to sleep, but if you’re tired you should at least nap.”

“I’m not tired,” Wonwoo responded quickly, voice gruff. “Are you tired?”

“Well, no, and I don’t have that much left I want to get through tonight so I’ll be fine. You sure you’re okay though?” He drew his knees up to his chest, eyes on the page in front of him, but attention a little further away.

Wonwoo didn’t say anything in reply, so Junhui moved on to solving problems in the calculus textbook, whizzing through them quickly and carefully, being conscientious about his work. It wouldn’t do to develop bad habits that led to him making careless mistakes, especially this close to the CSAT exam.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were injured?”

Junhui looked up from drawing the symbol for an integral and blinked. “What are you talking about?”

The chair screeched along the floor as Wonwoo moved to turn and face him, eyes cold and mouth still very carefully blank. “The icepack. What was it for? Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”

“Oh.” Junhui crossed his legs and set down his things to place his hands on his lower back, rubbing gently at his own muscles. “But I’m not injured?”

“Then what was the icepack for?” Wonwoo’s eyes narrowed, his eyebrows drawn together, but his voice was still even.

“Precaution. We did a lot of movement in class today, and I don’t want the muscles to swell and hurt for the rest of the week. It’s not a big deal.” Junhui tried to brush it off carefully, because it wasn’t a big deal. He had to be careful about his old martial arts injury, but it wasn’t debilitating, and it was long ago enough that as long as he used his core muscles to compensate, he was usually okay.

“Not a big deal. Of course.” Wonwoo snorted. “I went through the same exercises as you today and you don’t see me holding an icepack anywhere. Don’t _lie_ to me Junhui, not to my face after you’ve already lied by omission.” His voice was low, and Junhui swore he could feel the vibrations of sound echoing through his body, chilling him.

“I didn’t lie, I’m not.” Junhui shoved his hands through his hair with frustration. “Look it was a very long time ago, when I hurt myself during martial arts, but I recovered from it and ballet doesn’t take the same movements, and I’m fine, honestly. I’m fine.” He slumped down so that only his shoulders were against the wall. “If I knew you were going to be upset about it, I would have gotten rid of the ice pack earlier so you hadn’t seen it,” he muttered.

“Don’t you dare!” Wonwoo said sharply, before taking a deep breath and returning to a calmer tone of voice. “Don’t hide more things. Don’t do that. Don’t avoid things by not telling me, because it doesn’t make the underlying problem go away. I’m not upset because I’m berating you, I’m upset because I’m worried. There’s a lot of stuff in the choreography that needs your back, and doing that roll over your back probably made things worse, and we’ll take it out of course, but if you had just told me then we wouldn’t have had tried it in the first place and you wouldn’t have aggravated it—”

“—Wonwoo-ya, stop. I didn’t aggravate it. You didn’t need to give me the bed, I could have sat in the chair for longer, it wouldn’t have killed me. It wasn’t because you tried to do an aerial over my back. Calm down. I didn’t tell you because I genuinely recovered. I’m not trying to be strong when I say I’m fine.” He nodded encouragingly, a smile on his face as he spoke. “Don’t worry so much. I know you’re being a good person, but seriously, I’m _fine_.”

Wonwoo glowered at him, finally letting his lips fall from expressionless into a scowl. “Next time, just tell me things so we don’t have a big misunderstanding for nothing. If I find out you’ve been lying, you’re dead.”

“Will you break my back?” Junhui giggled.

“Don’t joke about things like that,” Wonwoo grumbled, eyes dark and throat raspy.

He hummed. “You’re so bossy today.” Junhui didn’t get an answer to that, Wonwoo having turned back around to his own studies, but he still felt warm and touched when he returned to the last of his math work. They were both quiet after that.

Sometime during him reviewing his physics notes, Junhui passed out asleep with his face pressed into the paper. He knew this because it’s the last thing he could remember about that night, reading up on electromagnetic coils and the flow of current. 

Junhui had woken himself up by scratching just above his upper lip and causing himself to shiver at the tickling sensation. In his dreams there had been a butterfly that on his nose and took off, leaving behind a shiny trail of glitter, a mark that Junhui couldn’t wipe away. The lights were switched off when he opened his eyes, and Wonwoo was physically gone, but his presence remained. Junhui’s books were stacked neatly on the desk, the writing implements packed neatly into his pencil case, and his thin covers tucked neatly around his shoulders. When Junhui inhaled, hair splayed messily around him on his pillow, he could smell the soap Wonwoo liked to use, light and fresh. The scent lingered his nose even after he had showered to get ready for the next day.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

He didn’t mean for it to happen, but his birthday turned into a big event. Originally it had been just Minghao, and then he had invited Soonyoung and Jihoon, but of course that meant he’d ask Mingyu and Wonwoo to come. Before he knew it, there were people planning on attending that Junhui wasn’t sure he had spoken to before, and on the day of the dinner, they take up so much space in the tiny Chinese restaurant that there’s no room for other patrons.

The owners didn’t seem to mind, bustling around and taking orders from everyone with a smile, and bringing Junhui a bowl of longevity noodles on the house with a wink.

Despite it not going as planned, it was nice. Being surrounded by so many people, laughing, talking, smiling. The focus of attention naturally drifted away from him as people joined, and he revelled in that, watching people who didn’t know each other very well get introduced. Everyone knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody, so no one was sitting alone or staying quiet for very long.

Minghao had walked over from the school campus with him, but ran to join the other Chinese international students early on in the night, and left him with a bickering Jihoon and Soonyoung who, a few hours later, were distracted into an aggressive game with food reward and punishments with Seungkwan and Seokmin. He watched them briefly, eating languidly since none of his food was being gambled, and enjoyed the loud cheering with a grin plastered to his face.

“Okay hyung, budge over, it’s time for me to give you your birthday present.” Mingyu was chewing with his mouth open when he came over, and dusted off his fingers superficially with a napkin before plopping down behind Junhui, chair pulled close enough that his legs were spread out around his hips.

“Should I be worried?” He asked Wonwoo light-heartedly, putting down his chopsticks.

“Oh absolutely,” Wonwoo said, grinning. He sat down as well, legs spread out and weight leaning back to rest on his palms. Junhui’s stomach knotted with trepidation.

“I’m the best at makeovers! You’re going to look amazing once I’m done.” Mingyu’s fingers threaded through his hair, combing it out from scalp to ends with assuredness. He teased out the tangles gently, and the rhythmic movements eventually made Junhui feel relaxed enough to lower his raised shoulders.

“Are you saying I need a makeover and don’t already look amazing?” Junhui asked, eyes closed.

“Your trust in the guy who insulted you to do your hair is something I’m not sure I’d recommend,” Wonwoo joked.

Mingyu slapped at Wonwoo’s thigh, the smack ringing loudly. “Stop it, you’re not funny.”

Junhui shifted around in his chair. “Hey, can you let him finish with whatever it is he’s doing before you go chopping off other people’s limbs? I don’t want to get arrested for being an accomplice, especially being in a foreign country at all.”

Wonwoo and Mingyu made eye contact with each other around Junhui’s head and burst into laughter simultaneously. “See, Wonwoo-hyung? You’re not funny. Junhui-hyung’s funny.”

“I keep getting laughed at in this restaurant,” Junhui said sadly, dropping his head.

Mingyu yanked him back up by the ponytail he had made with Junhui’s hair and chastised him. “If you move around, my fingers can’t do their magic,” he warned.

“What magic?” Junhui asked at the same time that Wonwoo scoffed and said, “The fact that he’s sitting this still is already a miracle.”

“Don’t worry, hyung,” Mingyu said solemnly, “Wonwoo-hyung complains that I’m too restless too. I think he complains about everyone moving too much because he’s always in hibernation mode.”

Wonwoo picked up a stack of napkins and beat Mingyu’s head with them, forcing Mingyu to turn aside and let go of Junhui’s hair. “You’re ruining Junhui-hyung’s hairdo!” Mingyu wailed.

“Junhui will live, but I promise you that _you_ won’t!”

It took Junhui placing a hand on Wonwoo’s thigh to get him to stop sending Mingyu threatening punches in order for Mingyu to finish pulling his hair up into a high ponytail and twisting it around tightly for a messy bun. His bangs hung to the side of his face, framing his cheekbones, and Mingyu’s fingers went over them a million times to get them to sit the way he wanted, even though Junhui wasn’t sure they were any different from start to finish. There wasn’t a mirror to check what he looked like, so he pulled out his phone for its front camera, but Mingyu wanted to be in the photo with his creation, and soon everyone was piling into the picture, Junhui’s phone in the hands of the owner, who stood as far back as possible to capture everyone squished together into the frame.

It was a good time to adjourn too, with everyone finished eating, and documentation for future reminiscing.

“Send me that picture,” Minghao said hurriedly as he passed him, following quickly behind Jieqiong, Yilin, and Minyoung on their way out.

Mingyu and Wonwoo waited for Junhui outside while he made sure everyone had paid, and tried to help clean up. He was shooed away quickly, with well wishes for his birthday and a pat on his bum.

“Thanks for waiting,” he said, the cooler air of night time settling refreshingly on his skin. He rubbed his arms absently, staring up at the sky, still blue rather than inky black because of the longer summer days.

“Would have been too sad if the birthday boy walked home by himself,” Mingyu said, stretching up. “That was good. I’m surprised I’ve never been here before. The food was yummy.” He rubbed his belly before they set off and Wonwoo gave Junhui a curious look.

They dropped Mingyu off at the second year residence first.

“Ah, it really does feel like my parents sending me off.” Mingyu pretended to sniffle and wipe at imaginary tears.

“We’re old, but not that old. Get your ass inside.” Wonwoo scoffed. He had his hands shoved into his pockets and pretended to kick at Mingyu, who yelped and only barely dodged Wonwoo’s foot.

Junhui laughed into Mingyu’s shoulder while Mingyu pulled him into a bear hug, and waved goodbye with a smile seemingly permanently affixed to his face. He threw an arm around Wonwoo’s shoulders as they walked the short distance back to their dorm building.

“So, do you have a present for me too?” Junhui ribbed.

Wonwoo scratched behind one of his ears and wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, I left it in the dorms though.”

“I’ll come with you to get it,” Junhui said eagerly.

“Don’t most people say ‘oh, it’s fine, you didn’t need to get me anything’?”

“Yeah but I’m special, remember? Also, most people don’t have to put up with you all the time.” Junhui used the hand that was on Wonwoo’s shoulder to poke at one his cheeks. His skin was cold to the touch, or at least cooler than Junhui’s warm hands.

“If I’m that hard to be around, we can go our separate ways now, and I guess I won’t give you anything after all.” Wonwoo turned his head and bit Junhui’s offending finger, before releasing it from his teeth and shoving him sideways off the pavement and onto the grass.

“Biting is cheating,” Junhui grouched, as if he didn’t resort to biting all the time too.

“Yeah, okay, sure.” Wonwoo snorted. “Let’s go.” He pulled Junhui back onto the path and pushed him forward to get him walking along again.

“So what is it?” Junhui nagged all the way up the stairs and past his own room, “What did you get me?”

Wonwoo pelted Junhui with soft punches as soon as he was through the door, on his arms, into his stomach until Junhui doubled over in self-defense. And even then, he planted his elbows into Junhui’s neck, moving to smack his head once Junhui’s arms came up to protect the base of his skull. 

“Ow, ow, ow, this is not the birthday present I was expecting,” he whined, straightening up once Wonwoo had finished attacking him with birthday beats.

His eyes landed on the box Wonwoo was holding out, produced from nowhere while Junhui was rubbing at the sore spots. It was black, square, no bigger than one of his palms although he was supporting it with both hands, and unwrapped. 

“Sorry I didn’t have time for a card or packaging and stuff,” Wonwoo said awkwardly when Junhui lifted it gently with both his hands, accepting it quietly with a bow of his head.

Junhui fumbled with the lid, trying to get it to lift off the bottom half taking more dexterity than he expected, but he was careful not to tilt the box sideways or drop anything, unsure as to what was inside. Pressing one side against his sternum, Junhui finally pried it off, and his mouth opened, jaw remaining lowered when he saw what was inside. He stared at it, eyes unblinking, and Wonwoo rushed to fill the silence with an awkwardness that was unlike him at all.

“I wasn’t…I’ll be honest, I didn’t forget it here, I just wasn’t planning on giving it to you at all.” 

Junhui didn’t ask why, although his curiosity was piqued, too focused on the two shiny beads sitting on silver in front of him. But he didn’t need to prompt Wonwoo, who took a breath and continued. 

“It started off just noticing you had your ears pierced, but never wearing earrings. It made sense in class, but even on weekends you never had anything in, and I asked Minghao and Soonyoung and both of them said they’d never seen you wearing earrings. Jihoon said he didn’t even know your ears were pierced, but he isn’t the the type to notice things like that, I guess.” Wonwoo paused, and glanced at Junhui who was nodding along and petting the black onyx with the tip of his index finger.

“Anyway, so I dragged Mingyu around looking for something that suited you, and when I finally found something...I realized, last week, that the last time you’d worn earrings must have been when you were still in China. And after last week, I mean, it just seemed a little bit to me that maybe there was something you wanted to leave behind, and maybe the earrings were part of the package to be thrown away, especially since you couldn’t just fill in flesh into your ears or something.” Wonwoo fiddled with his fingernails, gaze cast down at his hands. “So I thought I’d get you something else, but there was no time, and then you asked…And in the spur of the moment I figured, even if you were leaving something behind, that didn’t mean you couldn’t move on, right? These were bought in Korea, by someone Korean, given to you in Korea, so really it’s a step forward?”

Junhui finally closed his mouth, and his lips curved slowly into a broad smile. “I like them a lot,” he said warmly, eyes never leaving the objects in question. Wonwoo looked up, startled by the tone of Junhui’s voice, which was sincere and gentle and affectionate, with none of the teasing lilt that Wonwoo had become so familiar with. “I liked them even before I heard that story, but now I like them even more. Because there’s meaning attached to them.” And every one of Junhui’s words was true. He’d hold them close to his heart.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

Soonyoung disrupted the relative silence with an incoherent yell of frustration, his hands clenched around nothing. It startled Junhui into making a scribble in his notebook. “Forget this. I give up. Who cares about passing high school or going to university, I’m just going to live off of monetized viral dance videos and choreographing at a studio. That’s why I’m in an arts school right? Why didn’t I go audition for some idol company and become famous?” He whined and rolled around on the bed, kicking up the sheets and the pillow landed on the floor, somewhere beside Junhui’s feet. 

“You’re going to make him launder that like you did to me, right?” Junhui muttered at Jihoon without looking up.

“Him? I’m going to make him wash everything and set up an entirely fresh set of sheets that pile of shit hasn’t touched,” Jihoon said airily, also concentrated on his notes.

Their dance evaluations for the term had come and go, and they had celebrated Soonyoung’s birthday along with the end of those tests. The only word Junhui could think of to describe what had passed was a ‘party’. He could still feel his ears ringing if he thought too hard about it, and it felt like the entire school had been packed into a single studio. He’d stuck behind to clean up afterward as well, rolling up giant sheets to protect the flooring from food crumbs, sweeping until it was nearly dawn. Wonwoo had insisted they still hold practice that morning, even though he also didn’t sleep, but it was the last time they’d have some reprieve.

As soon as the marks for the arts semester summative assignments had ended, all of the focus had turned to academic performance. Their teachers had become frenzied in their attempts to prepare classrooms full of students who were much more interested in their majors than literature or math. They had been assigned pages and pages of schoolwork, forced into studying during class, after class, and Junhui was practically dreaming of his coursework these days. The period of time right before vacations when everyone buckled down for academics had been driving Soonyoung crazy since their first year of high school. Now in their third, it was safe to say he had lost any remaining marbles.

“Don’t fucking think about it,” Jihoon warned suddenly, and Junhui looked up to investigate.

Jihoon hadn’t looked up, but had somehow perceived Soonyoung’s foot sneaking underneath the pillow, ready to kick it in the direction of Jihoon’s head. Soonyoung slowly removed his foot, as if he hadn’t meant to do anything at all, and innocently returned to pulling out his hair at his school notes.

“Whoa!” Mingyu skidded to a stop after opening the door part way, nearly taking out Wonwoo, who was sitting on the floor by the exit surrounded by stacks of index cards, each with tiny lettering on them, and sheets of paper with lists of vocabulary to memorize. Mingyu still ended up tumbling through the door when Seungkwan and Seokmin bumped into him from behind, each also surprised by the sudden stop. 

“Full house today!” Seokmin chirped with a smile, carefully stepping around all of the notebooks on the ground to hop up onto the bed beside Soonyoung. Seungkwan made a flying leap over all the stuff and landed cleanly away, but before he could be pleased with himself, lost his balance and fell on top of Junhui’s back. Junhui righted him without taking his eyes away from the page in front of him, and sent him trotting to sit by Jihoon’s feet. 

Mingyu attempted to be as unobtrusive as possible, but his long limbs flailed and the back of his calf brushed the edge of one of Wonwoo’s cue cards, sending the pile toppling over. Wonwoo looked up at him, eyes narrowed so much they were barely open, and mouth drawn so tightly together his lips had disappeared.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Mingyu quickly set to arranging the mess in its right order and neatly put the stack back where it had been. He looked around, and finding nowhere in the room to sit, lifted Jihoon up, took a seat, and placed Jihoon back on his lap.

Picked up easily like a rag doll, Jihoon didn’t even have time to protest before he was back in front of pages and pages of empty staves, the manuscripts in front of him needing to be filled. He had no time to waste and wiggled his bum to get comfortable before continuing to fill in lines of music. “My room is not a club house,” Jihoon groused under his breath in a lyrical line, singing the music he was writing as he spoke, “Please make use of the ample study spaces provided by the school, paid toward by your tuition money.” 

“You’re a very good singer, hyung,” Mingyu said solemnly.

Jihoon swatted the knee underneath his own. “Don’t you have a monologue or something to memorize for your drama summative? Or do acting majors really have no substance?”  

Mingyu pouted, unseen by Jihoon, and started playing with the ends of his hair. Jihoon shook his head angrily, getting strands into Mingyu’s mouth, but it didn’t deter him at all. 

Soonyoung stopped pinching Seokmin’s cheeks, dropping his hands to place them over his philosophy notes. “Yeah, wait, why aren’t you guys studying? Quit bothering us, we have to do things with our lives.”

“What happened to forgetting high school?” Junhui asked, erasing a plus sign and rewriting it to make it a negative.

“I’ve been studying for the past six hours straight,” Seungkwan announced. “If I read one more question, I’m going to quit school and become a professional singer.”

Junhui sighed with relief, finally arriving at the right answer to the question he was working on. He processed what Seungkwan said and snorted. “You and Soonyoung can start your own band, make it big, and have all the money while the rest of us slave away in post-secondary education.”

“Are you studying for calculus?” Mingyu asked curiously, peering over behind him and placing both his hands on Jihoon’s shoulders for balance as he leaned back. “Why aren’t you with Soohee-noona?”

Wonwoo tapped the back of his pencil on Junhui’s knee to catch his eye and flashed him a quick eyebrow raise, the bags under his eyes stretching and crinkling together again prominently. “Is that the girl,” He paused, clearing his throat, “That you went on that date with?” His voice was low and rough and eyes unreadable.

Junhui looked at him with brows furrowed, and nose wrinkled. “A date?”

Seokmin sat up quickly. “Junhui-hyung’s dating a girl?”

Soonyoung lazily hung his hands over the edge of the bed and turned his head towards Jihoon. “Junhui’s never dated a girl, has he, Jihoonie? If anyone could get Junhui to settle down, I’d pay them good money.”

Jihoon shot him a warning glare for being such a fucking loudmouth. “Not that I can remember, but honestly, if you bastards are going to use this as a fucking gossip space, you should go to the common room—”

He was ignored entirely. “You make it sound like I’m undesirable and no one would want to date me,” Junhui complained. “But yeah I haven’t been on a date in years—” He stopped and shot Wonwoo another look for the sudden smile that had appeared on Wonwoo’s face, which had sent Junhui’s stomach tangling itself into knots as it rolled around inside him.

“Soohee though?” Wonwoo prompted, features more relaxed and open again, to match the bright smile. He resumed poking Junhui’s leg with his pencil and scooted away when Junhui tried to do the same to him.

Junhui gave him a strange look. “She missed a unit last year and I was tutoring her. As a joke she was giving me food for payment initially, but that really was a joke. Anyway, she’s up to speed now so I don’t need to do all my calculus studying with her, not when she’d rather be studying with Hyejin anyway.”

“Oh.” Wonwoo pressed the backs of his fingers against each of his cheeks and hunched over his things, hiding the shit-eating grin on his face.

“Wait, why? Are you dating someone, Wonwoo-goon?” Soonyoung leered, picking up on the embarrassment and becoming very interested at Wonwoo’s expression.

Wonwoo shook his head quickly, curling the fingers of his hands so they dug into his palms and keeping his knuckles firmly over his cheekbones, pursing his lips to hide the smile that had been there.

Mingyu giggled and choked on nothing from Junhui’s other side and Junhui whipped his head around, catching Seungkwan in the ear with his hair. Junhui narrowed his eyes with distrust, ready to bug Mingyu for why he was giggling, but Seungkwan interrupted him.

“Ack, hyung, you’re going to end up taking someone’s eye out with your hair,” he yelled, fingers massaging the shell of his ear.

“Sorry,” he muttered, patting the top of Seungkwan’s head. “Anyway, Mingyu-ya, why are you laughing?” he asked Mingyu, voice full of suspicion.

Mingyu covered his mouth with one hand and turned back around. “Nothing, nothing.” His eyes crinkled merrily, and they were still looking at Wonwoo who was glaring back at him while covering the majority of his face with his hands. Mingyu laughed again, shook his head, and pressed his face into the back of Jihoon’s neck, getting a flick for disrupting Jihoon’s concentration.

Seungkwan looked at Junhui thoughtfully. “Hyung, have you ever thought about bleaching your hair? You’ve had it long for enough time that I think it’s thick and healthy enough to withstand the colouring. Jeonghan-hyung had a really nice ashy blond colour, but you could try anything.”

“Hyung should dye his hair lavender,” Mingyu added, giggling.

Junhui wasn’t paying attention, he had accidentally stabbed through the page of his notebook and broken the lead of his pencil. He chuckled tensely, absently agreeing with them about whatever wild colour they had come up with next, and hid his grimace while erasing the wayward pencil marks he had trailed behind.

“The only thing getting coloured is my floor, stained with your blood if you guys don’t stop using this as a lounge space,” Jihoon said loudly. Once everyone was avoiding his glare and had shied away appropriately, he looked over at Soonyoung, whose face was full of concern. The two shared a look, both darting quick glances at Junhui.

Junhui screwed up his nose and took a deep breath before plastering on a tight-lipped smile. ‘It’s okay,’ he mouthed, eyes closed while nodding his head. He jerked his chin forward to tell them to continue on with whatever they were doing. They reluctantly looked away, still shooting him glances, but Junhui didn’t have any further outward displays of discomfort

He was getting over that shit. No need to walk on eggshells about it.

It had been a year, at least, there was no reason for him to be affected. The more he let himself be caught up at just his _name_ , the stupider the whole problem seemed. It was purely psychosomatic, at this point, a knee jerk reaction to need space and time to breathe. There wasn’t any emotion left in his heart. Really.

“I’m hungry, I’m gonna go grab something from the vending machine. Junhui-ya, you’re coming with me.” Wonwoo’s deep voice startled him out of his thoughts and Junhui rubbed his face quickly, squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again before standing up.

“Why do you need someone to go with you?” Seungkwan asked.

“Take me with you, hyung!” Mingyu said, bouncing a leg and being smacked in the head with Jihoon’s sleeve.

Wonwoo shook his head and dragged Junhui out by the wrist, pulling on him so they’d get out of there quickly. Junhui stumbled along, a little lost, but not altogether unwilling. He stared when Wonwoo stood beside the snacks, the slight humming and bright fluorescent lighting dulling his senses.

“Aren’t you getting something?” He asked slowly.

He shook his head. “Never mind the food. What’s more important is: are you okay?”

Junhui blinked and looked down at where Wonwoo’s fingers were still wrapped around his arm, cold against his own warm skin, but somehow still warming his insides.

Wonwoo withdrew his fingers quickly, dropping his arm as though burned, and stared at it as if that would stop the tingling sensation. Wonwoo’s hand may have been cold, but Junhui shivered at the loss of touch.

“Um, why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “You just looked kinda uncomfortable. I’m sorry for teasing you about Soohee, for what it’s worth.” He stopped looking down at his hand and reached up to rub at his neck awkwardly.

“What? No, it’s fine, I’m not offended or anything. She might be, if you think she’d stoop down to the level of _boys_ but…”

There was a moment just then when Junhui looked at Wonwoo’s earnest expression and considered blurting out everything.

About how much just thinking about his past friendships used to hurt.

About how one person screwing around with his head meant he’d messed up the one good thing that had come into his life.

About his regrets, his fears, everything he had struggled with before Korea and in Korea. Why talking about Jeonghan-hyung would always be weird. But that wasn’t on the table. It wasn’t on the table because Junhui only knew how to keep those negative thoughts to himself. And if anyone deserved to have Junhui’s problems dumped on them, it certainly wasn’t Wonwoo.

And the more he thought about it, the sillier it sounded to him. What was the point of bringing up the past now? Why bring down someone else’s mood when he’d trained himself to mask the lingering emotions?

He settled for flashing him the widest grin his mouth would allow. “Yeah anyway, it was something else, something silly.” Junhui forced out a light laugh. “You didn’t need to drag me out to talk,” he teased.

Wonwoo shrugged. “It’s just something small in terms of an action I have to do, but you deserve to have…” He trailed off, shaking his head, and smiled softly at Junhui. “I’m not dragging you anywhere, we just happened to be headed in the same direction.” His smile grew wider, revealing a tiny dimple. The laugh lines around his nose and the cast of his cheekbones came together in a sharp corner, highlighting the apples of his cheeks.

Junhui’s stomach lurched painfully.

Why was it that every conversation he had with Wonwoo, Junhui always felt like his insides was going to leap out of his mouth or swirl around and around in circles until he couldn’t move without feeling lightheaded? Fuck. That was getting to be even more unbearable that the stuff already clogging up his brain.

Junhui pointed one finger at Wonwoo’s forehead and pushed his head backward to give himself room to breathe.

“And that direction is towards acing the calculus final, right?”

“Only one of us is going to ace that final, and that person is me,” Wonwoo joked, wrapping his hand around Junhui’s finger and yanking on it so Junhui lost his balance. Wonwoo shouldered Junhui’s weight when he fell on top of him and elbowed him upright. “But you should come back and study to at least give me a challenge.”

“A _challenge_?” Junhui, affronted, put his hands on his hips. “Alright, Mr. Second-Place-in-Math, we’ll see what happens when class rankings are posted in July. I’m going to study so hard you won’t even be able to see my back from all the dirt kicked up into your eyes.”

Surprisingly, Wonwoo nodded at that. “Good.” He pushed Junhui forward, so they could return to Jihoon’s room.

Which was much emptier than when they’d left it.

“I sent them off,” Jihoon said brusquely, “they were getting too distracting and I know it’s hard for them to understand the pressure, but the second years just don’t know what it’s like with the weight of the CSAT hanging over your head.”

Soonyoung was rolling around on the bed again and stopped to give Junhui an intricate series of mouthed words and hand gestures that Junhui didn’t understand. He blinked and shook his head, earning himself a roll of the eyes and a sigh.

“Jihoonie, I’m going to sleep here tonight,” Soonyoung whined.

“Bullshit. You’re not going to sleep at all tonight because if you don’t finish those readings, I’m going to get Junhui to karate kick you off the bed and into the laundry room.”

“Junhui would never do anything like that to me!” Soonyoung protested.

“Yeah?” Jihoon turned his head around, menacingly baring his teeth. “Try me.”

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

It never ceased to amaze Junhui how much one person could devote their lives to dancing, and yet remain clueless about a variety of styles and techniques. He felt that a lot watching Jihoon and Soonyoung, moving in ways that he couldn’t dream of emulating, but it became even more stark of a feeling whenever he saw Minghao’s favourite style of dance. The ballet was something he was forced into out of time already invested, the breaking was something he was forced into from love. And he excelled at both, something which had always impressed Junhui.

He stood near the back, Mingyu and Wonwoo at either elbow, watching the crowd as much as what was happening on the floor, surveying everyone else’s reactions. They were certainly more informed than he was, for the most part, but he cheered loudly anyway for his friend, whenever he saw something that looked good, or seemed difficult. Even if he didn’t know what was going on, he could tell when Minghao incorporated new tricks, having seen enough of these over the past year or so.

His voice was unused to cheering, the shouting the loudest he’d been in weeks, and the noise around him, the music, the clapping, it made this the loudest his surroundings had been in weeks as well. After being cooped up indoors studying and test-taking, this was a nice reprieve, and he was glad Minghao had insisted that he come, even though he wouldn’t have said no. Soonyoung and Jihoon where missing out, wherever they were watching Seungkwan and Seokmin’s singing competition.

“I’m going to go find Minghao,” Junhui said after it was all over, “We have to go congratulate him.”

“Go, I’ll find you later, I have to pee,” Mingyu yelled over the din, loud enough that the people around him shoot him weird looks. He looped an arm around Wonwoo’s elbow and dragged him off to the bathroom, leaving Junhui alone when he made his way around the crowd and finally found Minghao receiving a peck on the lips from Jieqiong. He gaped and spluttered.

“Xiao Zhou! Are you dating this guy?” Junhui asked, utterly baffled. He stabbed a finger in Minghao’s direction accusingly.

Jieqiong, in a display much more reserved than he’d ever seen her before, tucked a strand of hair behind one ear, and slipped her other hand to link fingers with Minghao. She said nothing, her normally brilliant and toothy smile all demure and gentle, but no less happy.

Minghao sighed, although he made a show of squeezing her hand. “I really did think I was going to get through to graduation without finding out. Everyone else had promised to keep it secret from you too.”

“This was the secret you were talking about? Why were you hiding it from _me_? No way, I can’t believe this, you totally don’t deserve her.” Junhui shook his head, his hair flying.

Jieqiong untangled her hand from Minghao’s and held her hips. “First of all, you neanderthal, people don’t go out with other people because ‘they deserve it’, it comes out of a place of mutual respect and affection. I have agency over my own feelings, and I don’t rationally decide to deign people with my presence, I just like who I like, and it doesn’t matter what they’re like because it’s not your business. Second of all, I’m a human being, so don’t talk about me in front of my face like I’m just an object!” There was the Jieqiong he was used to, fiery and independent and exceptionally sharp-minded.

Junhui took a step backward, and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He opened his mouth, paused, and then closed his eyes and nodded his head. His lips slowly drew into a chagrined smile, and he opened his eyes again. “You’re right, that was rude of me.” He took his hands out of his pockets. “Let me apologize. Let me also say I’m very happy for the both of you. Say, Xiao Zhou, what are you majoring in again? How did you and Xiao Hao meet?”

“Instrumental music,” she said, huffing a breath and flipping her hair over her shoulder. She smiled back eventually. “How do all of the Chinese students at our school know each other?” She shrugged. “It just happened, slowly, then all at once.”

Before Junhui made a comment about the beauty of young love, Minghao smiled softly and nudged Jieqiong. “Hyung, that reminds me,” he said, “are you going back to China over the summer break? We’re headed back on separate flights, but we’re going to split a taxi to the airport, and if you fly on the same day we could split the cost three ways.”

Junhui shook his head. “No, sorry, you’ll have to pay between yourselves. I’m not headed back.”

The corners of Minghao’s lips dropped, pulling downwards but not quite in a frown. “Don’t you miss it? I’m excited to go back every vacation, but I don’t think you’ve ever gone back.”

“My family visits me,” Junhui said airily, “so it’s not bad. I’m not that homesick.”

Jieqiong tilted her head sideways. “Really? I’m always homesick. Even when I’m calling my parents I’m homesick. _Especially_ when I call them. If flights between Shanghai and Seoul were the same cost as bus fare, I’d be going back every single weekend just to taste my grandmother’s green onion pancakes.” She turned to look up at Minghao, eyes wide. “You’re not even going to recognize me when I come back, I’ll be just one round ball from eating so much.”

“You’ll be just as pretty though,” Minghao said, tone assuring.

Minghao yelped when Jieqiong pinched the skin at the corner of his jaw and gave him an exasperated look. “Well _obviously_.” She rolled her eyes, because that fact went without saying regardless of her weight. “Anyway, I’m going to get to see my middle school friends for the first time in months, and I really missed them, but it’s not like I got to talk to them the same way I talk to my parents once a week. Sleeping in my own room, walking around the neighbourhoods I grew up in, all the familiar sights and sounds. You’d think, being so close together, China and Korea wouldn’t be so different other than the language, but it totally is. China’s _China_ , you know? It’s home.”

Junhui didn’t know, not really.

Shenzhen was his hometown, but it wasn’t his home, not anymore, and he hadn’t associated the word ‘home’ with anywhere in China for years.

Home was the small dormitory room, it was the walls of the school building, and the street corners in Seoul he’s spent the last two and a half years occupying. He didn’t have pretty posters hanging from his walls, but what was plastered there instead was a sense of belonging that he never felt in the land of his forefathers, the country of his people, the places where people spoke the languages he grew up learning. Home wasn’t where you were born, Junhui had found out, and wasn’t that his coming of age story, finding out that home is a place you create, a place where you feel comfortable being yourself.

So he shrugged, not willing to burst someone else’s happy balloon of cherished memories, not willing to trod on their fondness for a country he never really planned on returning to again. “Sure.”

“It’s too bad that you’re not going back, _ge_ , I’ll bring you back lots of snacks, I promise!” She flashed a ‘V’ with her fingers at him.

“You don’t have to, I mean, my mom will probably ship me a box on her own.” Junhui laughed.

“Yeah, but mine will be from Shanghai! You can have a whole assortment from all over the country.” With that she nodded and reached up on her toes to kiss Minghao’s cheek. “Take care of this one for me, okay _ge_? Bring him back in one piece, I gotta go. No Fighting!” She yelled, one finger lifted behind her.

They watched her leave, a sort of half skip in her step that matched her bright and bubbly personality.

After a moment, Minghao coughed lightly. “Ah, the dreaded best friend meets girlfriend,” he joked. “Went a lot better than expected, to be honest.”

“Best friend?” Junhui lifted an eyebrow.

Minghao whacked Junhui’s shoulder with two fists, shoving him over until he fell. “Come off it, of course you’re my best friend, who else would it be? The guys in China I’ve known longer but never see anymore? Let’s not pretend didn’t already know that you filled the role a long time ago. Didn’t you say I was your best friend too?”

“Hmm...I’d believe you if you weren’t hiding this news from me. Aren’t best friends supposed to tell each other when they start dating someone?” Junhui dug his fingernails into the back of Minghao’s neck, his other arm having pulled him into a tight headlock, feeling simultaneously pleased and offended. 

“Urgh, get off me,” Minghao shoved Junhui away. He straightened out his shirt, and looked up, eyes not meeting Junhui’s. “I almost did tell you, that day, when you first asked what secret. I was going to ask you if I should ask her out...but I mean, there wasn’t a good time to, and also, we never talk about that stuff. You’ve never said to me, ‘oh, so-and-so looks pretty’, or, ‘I think I have a crush on this person’, so I wanted to just leave it. But then I kind of blurted out I liked her to her face, and she agreed to go on a date with me and one thing led to another and then I didn’t want you to find out because you should’ve been the first person to know.” He covered his neck with one hand awkwardly. “I was also kind of worried that you’d, I don’t know, make a big deal out of it or something. I half expected to spend the entire time yelling at you not to embarrass me.”

Junhui shuffled his feet awkwardly, looking down at his feet and scratched behind his ear. “Yeah, I can see where you’re coming from.”

“But the thing is, I didn’t. I didn’t really expect it but you’ve changed, hyung. I don’t want to inflate your already enormous ego, but you’ve gotten more mature. I’m kinda surprised.” His eyes flickered over to Wonwoo, who was walking back, and Minghao’s lips quirked upward. “It’s a good look on you.”

“You’re maturing so well too,” Junhui said, unaware of Mingyu and Wonwoo’s return, “getting a girlfriend and everything. They grow up so fast,” he pretended to cry.

“Oh my gosh, did you finally tell him?” Mingyu asked, slinging a shoulder around Minghao and surprising Junhui with his presence.

“Wait a second, when you said everyone else was keeping it a secret, did you really mean that _everyone_ knew except me?” Junhui punched Minghao’s shoulder. “That’s terrible, we’re never going to be best friends, I hate you.”

Minghao laughed. “You love me, don’t lie.”

Wonwoo snorted and slung an arm around Junhui’s shoulder, so that their positions matched, but he pressed closer, patting Junhui’s hip. “Nah, Junhui only loves me.”

Junhui laughed, leaning into Wonwoo and resting his head on his shoulder. That nook between Wonwoo’s chin and collarbones, it felt like belonging, it felt like a place he could be comfortable with himself. “Yeah,” Junhui said softly, and then louder, “Suck it, Xu Minghao.”

He felt the movement of Wonwoo’s neck as he cleared his throat from the side of his head. The spot above Wonwoo’s collarbones – it felt oddly like home.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“I dream of our choreo, did you know that? Instead of moving like a normal person through hallways and stuff, I dance from door to door.” Junhui moaned, collapsing to the studio floor, eyes staring blankly up at the bright fluorescent lighting but not noticing that he was being blinded. “I hear the music when I walk to class, when I wait in line in the caf, I hum it when I’m in the bathroom.” He was light-headed, the sweat sucked out of him and collecting in his drenched clothes. His back was surely leaving a stain on the ground even as he laid there, no longer moving, but chest still heaving from exertion. His hair was matted and damp, and the ponytail did nothing to help it from sticking to his face and neck.

“Hnngh.” Wonwoo said, which Junhui translated into ‘I’m too tired to move or speak but I probably agree.’ He too was lying down, within arms’ reach, but on his side, his arms hanging limply around him. Wonwoo’s eyes were closed, his mouth slightly open, and his breaths still quick.

“We’re not even done the choreo, and we’re already this tired, do you really think we have the stamina to pull off seven minutes of all this?” Junhui closed his eyes and all he could see was white, the luminescence seared into his eyeballs. Maybe an angel had been sent down to collect him for the afterlife.

A boneless arm flopped over in the general direction of Junhui’s face, probably meant to hit him. It missed, but didn’t bother trying again, and remained there just in front of Junhui’s nose. He snorted.

“I totally suggested we call it quits half an hour ago, you were the one who wanted to run through the introduction another five times, saying you still had the energy. This is entirely your fault.” Junhui was exhausted, but that just meant his brain to mouth filter was largely turned off. In fact, he was more talkative when he was tired, since he couldn’t act on his restlessness physically, it was translated into speech, which was less energy expensive.

The fingers on of the hand by Junhui’s nose skittered sideways, looking somewhat like a cross between a crab and a spider, and flicked Junhui. It went lifeless again as soon as it found its mark, and Junhui would have laughed if his abdominals weren’t so tight that it would hurt just to try. He rolled over and traced a tiny smiley face into Wonwoo’s back, using just his pinky finger so that he wouldn’t have to move more of his hand.

Wonwoo didn’t respond in the slightest, not even twitching, and Junhui frowned. He poked him again. And again. Once more, harder this time. Wonwoo still wasn’t reacting, and Junhui narrowed his eyes. He jabbed once into the back of Wonwoo’s neck with as much strength as his fingers could muster.

Very slowly, an arm lifted, shoulder first, then elbow, followed by wrist, until a hand slapped at the part of his neck where Junhui had poked, way after his finger had already been retracted. “Five more minutes,” Wonwoo slurred.

Junhui pouted, but he lowered his hand back to the ground, and with his ear pressed to the ground, waited for time to pass. He picked off a piece of lint from Wonwoo’s shoulder, crossed his eyes to focus on the way his hair tapered toward his hairline, getting shorter and shorter. His shoulders were narrow and bony, his shoulder blades prominent, and curled up like this, his normally charismatic dance floor presence gave way to someone human. Junhui waited, and waited some more, his skin becoming increasingly colder as the sweat dried. His muscles no longer screamed at him for extending himself, and his ankles were no longer gently pulsating from soreness. He waited for a period of time after that, having dozed off briefly, his head sinking downward to his chest and bobbing up so suddenly he woke from the whiplash. He waited, and when he thought he could wait no longer, he still did not speak up.

“I’m tired,” Wonwoo whined, his battery recharged, and Junhui exhaled deeply.

“I wonder why,” Junhui said sarcastically, toes twitching and fingers itching. He too had recovered, and his body was immediately restless as soon as his energy was back up.

Wonwoo spoke sideways into the floor. “I know right? I slept an entire four hours last night, that’s like a lifetime. I could have recited four hundred English grammar principles in that time.”

“I know you’re trying not to sleep as much as babies do since they’re not so bright, but I think you can consider sleeping a little more. I mean, after all, our grade’s best math student sleeps more than you do,” Junhui felt pretty pleased himself with that cheeky backhanded compliment to himself. Their class rankings had been posted the day before, and while Wonwoo was still top of the grade, Junhui did beat him out in math and physics once again.

“I hate you.” Wonwoo groaned. “Why are you so good with numbers, it doesn’t even make sense, can’t you get something wrong once in a while? I just need you to write down a four instead of a nine somewhere and I’ll take your silly first place from you.” He took the effort to roll over, first onto the back, landing with a soft exhale and blinking quickly at the brightness of the lights, before rocking sideways to face Junhui. Once they were facing each other, Wonwoo gave him a quick smirk and prodded his forehead. “Or let’s swap brains for just one exam, is that okay?”

Junhui smiled widely, and shook his head as much as he was able with the side of his face pressed to the floor. “Of course I’m good with numbers, that’s the one thing I love in this world the most. Other than dance. And food. Maybe food comes first?”

“No one likes numbers,” Wonwoo said, frowning. “That’s not natural. You can be good with numbers, but numbers aren’t intuitive. Try thinking about ten individual things in your head, and you’ll find you can’t. You start grouping them. You can’t just imagine abstract things like numbers, the human brain isn’t meant for things like that.”

Junhui closed his eyes and imagined ten cups of lychee jelly. “Mmm, I think I can. My brain is meant for things like that.”

“Okay, so, like I said, let’s swap brains.” Wonwoo stuck his lips out, closely resembling a duck, and pawed at Junhui’s knee.

“Nope! I like my brain. It’s fine where it is. I need my brain, it’s the only thing that’s going to get me through university.” Junhui puffed out his cheeks and then opened his mouth with a soft pop.

“Not going to aim for a life as a celebrity?” Wonwoo asked, amused. His hand was now rubbing a circle on Junhui’s thigh.

“I definitely have the face for it, don’t you think?” Junhui placed a palm underneath his own chin, and grinned, showing off his jawline. “But no, that’s not the life for me.”

Wonwoo looked at him, and brushed back Junhui’s bangs so that they were no longer covering his face. He studied his features for a moment. “So what _is_ the life for you?”

“Math or physics. I think I want to go into academia,” Junhui answered quickly. His face fell a little. “But my parents want me to do something concrete like finance or accounting. They’re just like you, not understanding abstract numbers.” He shrugged. “I guess I’ll find out in four years what I end up doing.”

“Nerd,” Wonwoo said, smiling.

Someone had taken a stick to stir the contents of Junhui’s stomach. He placed a hand at the base of his sternum. “Yeah, well, what about you, huh? Are you going to be some superstar principal dancer, famous around the world for your huge jumps and super turns? Am I going to have to needle you for tickets to see your ballets in five years?” Junhui’s tone was mocking, but there was sincerity underlying his questions. Dancers could have their entire careers made from having nice turns, and Wonwoo was good enough for the professional route.

“I thought about it,” Wonwoo said. “Well.” He snorts to himself. “I did more than think about it…” He turned to look at Junhui. “I don’t know if you remember, but in April I was off campus a lot, doing auditions, thinking I’d get picked up by some company and work my way through the ranks. It’s a pretty limited time frame, isn’t it? You can’t get picked up by anyone when you’re too young because it breaks employment regulations, but once you get too old, people pass over you for others.”

“Sure, but how’d things go?” Junhui asked, his hands clapped together.

Wonwoo rubbed an itchy spot on the back of his shoulder. “I got called back for a few places, but they wanted me to miss class to go through all their auditioning stages, and when it came down to it…I mean the decision was super easy for me. I turned them all down because there was no way I would skimp out on my education for dance. And when I realized how quickly I had made that decision, I also figured, right, that’s probably not the career path for me.”

“But you’re so good?”

The sound of Wonwoo’s laughter was brittle. “I think I liked hearing that a lot as a kid. My parents, my teachers, my friends, people I didn’t even know, everyone would push me in whatever direction because they thought I’d be good at it, or because I really was good at it. And I liked being praised, so I just did it.” He looked to go on but closed his mouth quickly, lips tugging sideways wryly. His eyes lowered and he chose his next words carefully. “I guess…there’s a difference between liking being praised and liking doing the thing you’re being praised for? And it’s hard to separate that now. I mean, in terms of my identity. So I’m not sure I love dance, not the way everyone else here does.” He kept his face turned downward and to the side, and shrunk a little into himself with hunched shoulders.

The shift in posture drew Junhui’s eye to Wonwoo’s neck. He was quiet for a moment, busy processing Wonwoo’s words and reached over to adjust Wonwoo’s collar with nimble fingers and gentle motions before speaking. “I’ve never thought about things like that, but I guess it makes sense.” He tried to catch Wonwoo’s gaze with a tilt of his head, dropping his chin and offering a soft smile. “So tell me, what do you like then?”

Wonwoo looked away quickly and cleared his throat. “I think doing things with my hands. Helping people by doing things,” he said, after a moment.

But Junhui knew he must have given the subject some thought and wasn’t satisfied with that answer. With the tip of his index finger, he rubbed a line down Wonwoo’s neck, urging him to go on. Huh. He had meant to dig his nails in not…well anyway.

Wonwoo leaned back a little, but did continue explaining, which had been Junhui’s goal. “I want to go into medicine next year…but it’s going to be tough getting into any program from an arts school.”

“I think you’d make a very reassuring doctor,” Junhui declared solemnly, scrutinizing Wonwoo’s appearance. “If I ever get sick, I’ll come see you.”

Wonwoo’s smile finally returned, even if it was just a little. With more confidence, he said, “Not now though. I mean, I don’t know anything more than you, so if you came to me with an illness I’d have no idea what to do. Cut open your skull and transplant your brain into mine so I can finally be better than you at math, probably.” Wonwoo laughed at his own joke, and hit his own cheeks with his palms. “But if I’m serious about medicine, and I am, it means I won’t be doing much dancing after this.”

Junhui looked at him, breathing even, eyes carefully reviewing his face for any changes to Wonwoo’s expression. There was a strain to his smile, a tiny tightening in the skin under his eyes, and just that much was enough to still the butterflies in Junhui’s stomach that had started to flap as soon as the hint of a smile threatened to grace Wonwoo’s lips. “I guess that’s why you’re such a studio bunny, huh? Have to take the chance to use the space and dance while you still can.”

“Yeah.” Wonwoo’s lips quirked further upward momentarily, before flickering back down into a straight line and then back up again in the time it took to blink. The way the lines of his face were set, it was obvious to Junhui that this was something that upset Wonwoo, even if he hadn’t seen the drop in his smile. But Junhui let him push those thoughts away and change the subject without resistance. “Anyway, the sad thing is, ever since I figured out that’s what I wanted, all my academic work and specs have become so much more important. I can’t even go home to visit my parents this summer.”

“Does this mean you’re going to be a slave driver during vacation and make us practice during then too?” Junhui asked, covering his face with his hands and peeking out between the space between his fingers. “Because I’m staying over the summer too, and I really thought I would be free of these torture sessions.”

Wonwoo waved a hand dismissively. “Ugh, I’m still too tired to get up. Ask me about practice two weeks from now when I’m no longer a zombie from lack of sleep.”

Junhui brightened up at that, glad to genuinely have some reprieve before things got even more hectic again. “Are you planning on anything for your birthday? That’s coming up soon.”

“Oh yeah…it’s going to be weird not celebrating with my family. I guess I’ll call my parents and make Mingyu dig out some candles or something.” He frowned, and tugged at Junhui’s wrist to poke at his bones. His hand ghosted over the skin of his forearm and he dug his fingers into the soft flesh on the inside of Junhui’s elbow.

Junhui watched the movement of his hands. It tickled, but didn’t pull his arm away.

“We should go for hamburgers,” Junhui suggested, shivering as Wonwoo’s hand travelled upward for his thumb to knead into Junhui’s shoulder, fingertips brushing the skin of his neck. “Stuff ourselves with junk food and sugary drinks, then become super lethargic afterward.”

“Sounds like a real party,” Wonwoo joked, his fingers finally reaching their destination. He thumbed gently over the top of the piece of jewellery, the familiar-looking black earrings cool to the touch, while Junhui’s earlobe was warm against his skin. Wonwoo’s eyes were fond when he spoke again. “Let’s do it.”


	2. I Blossom and Die

“So what are your plans on Wonwoo’s birthday?” Junhui plopped down beside Mingyu in the drama hallway, watching him read over lines for a scene.

Mingyu stopped mouthing words to himself to give Junhui a confused look. “Aren’t we going for burgers? Wasn’t that your idea? I’m pretty sure Wonwoo-hyung said that was your idea.”

“That’s what Wonwoo thinks we’re doing.” He plucked the pages from Mingyu’s hands and browsed through the script. “But, I mean we can’t give him a big party, he would hate that, but it’s his last birthday before he becomes an adult. Shouldn’t we give him a fun memory that he won’t forget?”

“It’s weird, but it’s like you’ve become an expert on hyung,” Mingyu snorted.

“You’re the one that he’s always with, so, you have to help me figure out his schedule so we can work in a surprise.” He clapped Mingyu on the shoulder, handing the pages back to him.

“We’re separate people,” Mingyu whined, “Don’t act like I spend all my time glued to him because I don’t!”

Junhui sighed. “You’re completely missing the point. I just need you to figure out a way that we can leave him a bunch of balloons to pop in his room, filled with, I don’t know, we can draw cartoons or buy him a bunch of candy and put one in each balloon.” He fixed Mingyu with a look. “You’re going to have to do all the decorating because you’re the artsy one, make it spell out his name or ‘19’ or something, so he can pop all of them to get whatever’s inside and have some excitement.”

Mingyu wrinkled his forehead and frowned, looking at Junhui out of the corners of his eyes. “Hyung, I just said you were an expert, but I was wrong. That’s a horrible idea because Wonwoo-hyung’s probably terrified of hearing balloons pop!” He shook his head his his eyes closed. “There’s no way he’d do it himself. He’d flinch each time to cover his ears before he could make it explode.”

“Hmm…” Junhui tapped his chin. “Okay, you’re right.” He smiled a little at the thought of Wonwoo being scared of popping balloons, the image nestled away into the back of his brain as he shuffled out the other ideas he had come up with. “Luckily, I have a back up plan. We can print pictures, whether photos or drawings or anything, and stick them in the shape of his name or his age, but on the back of each we write a good memory someone has of him, or an inside joke. We can recruit a lot of people to fill things in, even teachers, his parents, his brother, whatever, and that way a lot of people can be involved in making his birthday special without physically crowding around him!”

“That’s…really cute.” Mingyu laughed. “I like that idea. But there’s barely any time left, are we going to be able to muster together enough in time to put everything together?” He shoved his manuscript in his bag and helped Junhui off the bench.

“You underestimate my ability to nag people,” Junhui scoffed, a rather frightening gleam in his eyes.

“I’ve underestimated a lot of things about you, Junhui-hyung,” Mingyu said sheepishly, scratching at the back of his neck with one hand. “Like I didn’t think you’d end up spending so much time getting to know Wonwoo-hyung, but you don’t put up with his bullshit—”

“Language,” Junhui chastised absentmindedly.

“What?!” Mingyu spluttered. “You and Jihoonie-hyung swear all the time, how is that fair?”

Junhui clucked his tongue. “It’s because we’re older, so we can. You’re still a baby!”

“Asshole,” Mingyu mumbled quietly.

“What was that?”

“Nothing!” He grinned innocently. “Anyway, I’m glad you don’t let him use his cool exterior as a guard, he needs to learn that people aren’t just out to get him, you know?”

“Ah, I see, you’re glad your favourite hyung gets along with your husband, right?”

Mingyu’s face fell. “No, come on hyung, don’t tell me you believe that stuff. How many people have you seen Wonwoo-hyung interact with in all the time you’ve known him?”

Junhui pondered this for a moment. “Hm. You. Me. Jihoon and Soonyoung? Minghao.”

“Exactly.” Mingyu nodded. “Don’t you see? It’s the same circle of friends as you and I have.”

“Okay, but I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make.”

“I think…” Mingyu took a deep breath. “I think Wonwoo-hyung is really nice. Like, one of the nicest people I know kind of nice. He hides it with all his jokes and physical violence, but do you know how we became friends?”

Junhui shook his head.

“It was in elementary, and I was already a lot taller than everyone else. Moving to Seoul and not knowing anyone, most people avoided me. But Wonwoo-hyung, I think he had been through something like that too, and he found me eating by myself once and just started chatting with me.” Mingyu’s voice softened at the memory, his eyes curved and the skin at the side crinkled. “I think that was just something he naturally thought was the right thing to do, but he’s too scared so he hides that part of him a lot.”

That wasn’t something that had struck Junhui before, but it made sense now. “Like he doesn’t want people knowing that he’s actually really soft-hearted,” Junhui said slowly, “like he doesn’t want people taking advantage of that fact. So he lets people believe that he’s scary and cold…” A memory of Wonwoo’s soft smile flitted through Junhui’s mind, and he remembered the way Wonwoo’s eyes were downcast when he talked about the persona people had built around him. “…as a defence mechanism.”

Mingyu beamed, eyes wide and round. His lips were pulled back to reveal a pointy grin, and he clapped his hands excitedly. “You got it! I think people make that us being married joke because we spend a lot of time together, but it’s not like Wonwoo-hyung has other people to spend it with?” He quickly added, “Not that people don’t like him, in fact, too many people like him way too much.”

Even though Mingyu smiled perkily at his own joke about Wonwoo’s popularity, Junhui couldn’t bring himself to match that joy. Junhui had been suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of queasiness, stomach protesting uncomfortably. His chest was too tight, and Junhui thumped a hand over his sternum, trying to clear up the discomfort. “So it’s a jealous spouse thing then?” He frowned at the sound of his own voice, throatier than he’d hoped for.

“No, and Junhui-hyung, I really don’t think you should make that joke. The last time someone said something along those lines to Wonwoo-hyung’s face, he got really sad and weird about it for a week.”

“Why?” Junhui tried harder to keep his voice even, suppressing his breathlessness. “Because it made him uncomfortable about his one close friendship, or because there’s someone he’s interested in actually marrying?”

Mingyu burst out into laughter. “I don’t actually know about the second part, but I don’t think he’s ever told me anything genuinely personal like that. So I would assume that it probably pushed some of his insecurities into light.” He frowned quickly before returning to his more regular chipper state. “But I agree with you completely, I think he’s afraid that something will go wrong, so he doesn’t give people a chance to get to that part of him. If he continues the scary act, then there’s no way someone will get close enough to use his kindness against him. But you can’t live life like that, always shooting yourself in the foot before you even start running the race, just so you’re guaranteed not to lose. Sometimes the journey to the finish line is the best part!” His voice was so bright, and the words so hopeful that Junhui wondered if he really was the older of the two of them.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Junhui said quietly. The constricting feeling in his chest had just grown as Mingyu spoke, like there wasn’t enough space inside his ribcage for both his swelling heart and lungs to coexist. Every breath seemed to hurt. “But you know, you keep saying Wonwoo’s scared of a lot of shit, but it’s not like he’s a coward. He’s a really strong person.”

Mingyu bounced eagerly. He snapped his fingers and pointed at Junhui with both hands. “This is exactly why you’re my favourite hyung!” He said excitedly. “I’m really glad that Wonwoo-hyung has you, and I’m kind of relieved that you like him enough to give him the time of day and all of your attentiveness, hyung! It’s very reassuring to know that you’re watching out for him.”

Junhui’s hands were warm and his cheeks even warmer. His head ducked to hide the blush and he rubbed his sweaty palms on the fabric of his trousers. As if the tightness in his chest wasn’t enough, his heartbeat had picked up dramatically, thudding loudly in his ears. The blood rushed everywhere, and he took a second to pick at the collar of his shirt, trying to cool his neck.

Beside him, Mingyu had continued on. “I mean, over the past four years I’ve managed to pick apart enough of his scariness that he drops his guard, but you’ve done it in one semester.” Mingyu turned to study Junhui carefully, a pout on his lips. “I think that means Wonwoo-hyung likes you more than he likes me. You have to choose a favourite now, hyung, I’m your favourite dongsaeng, you’ve liked me for longer, _and_ you’re my favourite hyung, so you like me more than Wonwoo-hyung, right?”

Junhui laughed, slightly hysterical, but nodded quickly. He was lucky that Mingyu was always so chipper and talkative, because there was no way Junhui could hold up his end of the conversation at this point.

“Good!” Mingyu swung his legs happily. “See? You’re just as nice as Wonwoo-hyung, but without any of the prickly exterior, or the terrible jokes. Plus, you’re more easy-going. Although…” He squinted at the wall thoughtfully. “Wonwoo-hyung’s been a bit less intense recently. I’m pretty sure I have you to thank for that.”

“I have to try to make him relax, the first years are starting to spread rumours that he’s secretly a werewolf.” Junhui forced the joke out through his teeth. He hadn’t stopped struggling to calm the feeling in his chest.

Mingyu giggled. “Definitely funnier. So…for your event, are we going to include our presents in this event? Maybe instead of buying individual small presents, we should pool our resources and get him something big?” Mingyu grinned down at Junhui hopefully, all sharp white teeth.

Junhui’s mind switched gears as they switched topics of conversation, and he slowly felt his heart rate subside, the tension in his lungs loosening until he could breathe properly again. He cleared his throat. “By resources, you mean my money, and by pool, you mean tack your name onto something you didn’t contribute to, don’t you?” Junhui narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Unfortunately for you, I already bought what I’m getting him, so I guess you’ll have to figure something out on your own.”

“Fine.” Mingyu sighed. “I guess I’ll just make him something, I really don’t have the money or time to go shopping right now. What did you get him anyway?”

“A hamburger pillow, and a book called ‘ _So You Wanna Be a Doctor?_ ”

Mingyu stared at him, lips drawn together. “Why a doctor?”

“Because Wonwoo wants to become one?”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.” Mingyu’s eyebrows knitted together and he puffed out his cheeks. “But hyung, that’s so…novelty gifts are so kitschy.”

“Kitschy?” Junhui didn’t understand the word.

“Life isn’t one giant game, hyung. I would have thought you’d get Wonwoo-hyung something more…” He waved his hands in circles, vaguely trying to get his point across with the gesture instead of words, a frown pulling down the corners of his lips.

“More what?” Junhui asked, still not comprehending.

Mingyu shrugged. “Just more. I mean, considering you two…I guess it’s not really my business though.”

“What’s not really your business?” Junhui’s questions seemed to only be drawing more things needing clarification, rather than any answers. At any rate, he was drowned out by Mingyu breaking out into a booming voice to recite his monologue.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

Junhui had spent many holidays at the school, applying for continuous stay in the dorms over the winter and summer sessions. In his experience, even if he outlined a list of goals for the vacation period, he’d still spend most of his time lazing around, only ever leaving his familiar bed if his parents had flown over to visit.

During those days with his family, he’d share a hotel room with Feng Jun, happily watching his little brother fall asleep on the bed across from his before he even considered drifting off himself.

Upon his return to campus, it was always deserted save for one or two students, and which ever teacher had been pitifully assigned to supervision duties. Usually he could go through all those days without talking to anyone except whoever was working in the cafeteria, and it was empty enough that he sometimes wouldn’t see anyone else around either. That was what made seeing so many people he knew around the buildings so strange this summer. He had gotten so used to being alone that it no longer felt lonely.

He ran into repertoire teacher Yoon first, on his way out of the studio the first week into summer vacation. He hadn’t been doing much, mostly just stretches, and a quick run through of bar and some centre exercises, just to make sure he wouldn’t forget things and that his body would still be in peak condition when they were once again forced into the long practice hours.

“Junhui!” She exclaimed with surprise, hand closing tightly around her thermos of tea to prevent it from falling. “Are you coming out from practicing in there? During your break?” She smiled. “I’m really impressed, all the other kids are at home busy eating and they’ll come back and pretend not to know why they’re not half as flexible after not moving all summer.” She ruffled his hair and patted his shoulder after he bowed to her, and smiled before continuing on her way.

Before even getting a chance to laugh, someone flew into him, knocking back Junhui’s shoulder, and sending his hair flying around his face.

“Watch where you’re going,” Wonwoo teased in a low-pitched voice, rough around the edges, and stayed standing close enough to Junhui that their arms were touching.

Junhui took a moment to collect his breath and scowled. “Fancy seeing you here,” he said sarcastically, giving his shoulder an emphatic rub even though it hadn’t really hurt when Wonwoo had purposefully pumped into him.

“I know right, if you had just told me you were going to be practicing right now we could have shared a studio or something, but _someone_ is terrible about communicating.” Wonwoo nudged Junhui’s shoulder again, thwacking his arm with his other hand.

“You said we didn’t have to work on our project over the summer,” Junhui whined.

“I said nothing of the sort, but I wasn’t even thinking about that, I was just saying we could have hung out.” He leaned back a little, no longer so close Junhui could smell the salt on his skin or identify each individual flyaway hair on his head.

“You totally did, I remember it clearly!” Junhui complained.

“Are you holding me accountable to something I was saying under duress of exhaustion? I really don’t think anything said in those circumstances should count,” Wonwoo said, picking up a section of Junhui’s hair and tucking it in the space under his nose and above his mouth so that it would look like a very floppy moustache.

“Ugh, fine, whatever. I’m free now, what did you wanna do?” Junhui, used to other people playing with his hair at this point, was completely unperturbed.

Wonwoo dropped the strands he was holding and looked down at his watch. “Uh, study actually. Sorry, I just really need to do well on the SAT.” He gave Junhui an apologetic look and shuffled his feet awkwardly.

Junhui’s eyes dropped and peered over at Wonwoo’s wrist as well. “Not going to eat dinner first? Food is brain fuel.”

“It’s alright, I had a huge lunch before this and I’ll make up for it with snacks.” He nodded reassuringly.

“You’re so different from Minghao, he never skips meals. But at the same time, both of you have huge appetites and burn through all your nutrition like water.” Junhui shook his head. “Anyway, I’m really hungry so I’m headed down to the caf. Why don’t I meet you in your room in half an hour?”

“Do you even have anything to study for?” Wonwoo asked suspiciously.

Junhui shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out.”

He returned with a stack of convenience store sandwiches, dropping them on Wonwoo’s desk before kicking off his shoes and dropping onto Wonwoo’s bed.

“Yes! You’re the best, Junhui-ya. Foooood,” Wonwoo moaned loudly, dropping his pencil, “I’m starving.” He ripped off the plastic to tear into a sandwich.

Junhui snorted. “How can you be that hungry and still willingly skip meals?”

Wonwoo didn’t reply, too busy chomping away at the bread to pay him any mind. Junhui looked down at all the textbooks he had lugged over from his room and sighed, shoving them further away from him and fishing his phone out of his pocket. They were supposed to be relaxing, not exerting themselves in dance or academic studies. He fluffed the pillow under his head and wiggled around on the mattress, trying to get comfortable. Once he was loose and relaxed he tapped around the screen to find a match-three colour swapping game and settled into a rhythmic level grinding while Wonwoo ate.

“Thanks for all of that.”

Junhui looked up halfway through a yawn, to where Wonwoo was indicating with his head. It was only then that Junhui really took in his room, the poster of a band Junhui wasn’t familiar with by the bookcase, the framed photograph of Wonwoo with his parents, and someone who looked so much like him it could only be his little brother sitting on the desk. Beside where his clothes were hanging, the individual photos Junhui and Mingyu had collected were taped in neat columns to the wall, presents carefully opened and packaging neatly folded down on the floor just underneath.

“For a hamburger pillow?” Junhui snorted. “There’s really no need to thank me, I just thought it’d make you laugh.”

“You were right,” Wonwoo agreed easily, “But I meant the other stuff. It was nice reading all the messages, especially from my parents. Made it seem not so weird to have to spend it at school.”

“Mingyu did all of that,” Junhui said, waving his hand. His role had been to distract Wonwoo for long enough after Mingyu escaped dinner to sneak into his room and put up the pictures. “He’s the one with the eye for aesthetics and whatever, so I hope you thanked him when you found him creepily standing around in your room.” Junhui laughed at his own joke, and wiggled his feet in frustration when it looked like he wasn’t going to clear this level of his game.

“Yeah, but he said you were the mastermind. Which I kind of figured, since there’s no way anyone would have responded to Mingyu bugging them for something like this, so you definitely had a pretty big role in it.” Wonwoo crinkled together all of the empty wrappers from the sandwiches he finished eating, balling them together to toss them into the trash can underneath his desk. He wiped at his mouth with the heel of his hand, missing a spot. Junhui briefly debated whether or not he should tell him that there was a spot of sauce at the corner of lips.

“Sure, I sent politely worded but urgent letters out to people, I did so much,” Junhui said, lacing his tone with as much sarcasm as he could muster. To hell with it, there was no need to say it. He got up and strode forward to stand in front of Wonwoo, and used the pad of his thumb to wipe off his mouth, going back over the spot once more with a knuckle to make sure it was all gone.

Wonwoo leaned forward into his hand once he realized what Junhui was doing, eyelashes fluttering as he looked down at Junhui’s fingers. He hummed when Junhui was done. “Just take the damn sentiment, you bastard. Why are you eager to express gratitude, or compliment people, or even apologize, but so bad at accepting ‘sorry’s and ‘thank you’s, Junhui-ya?” Wonwoo grumbled, tucking his feet underneath him on the chair and curling up to return to furiously scribbling down his work and answers for extra math problem sets.

Junhui returned to the bed and looked down at his phone with a wry smile. The silence that settled between them was comfortable but couldn’t last forever. There was only so long he could entertain himself on his phone, and Wonwoo looked like he was slowly dying anyway, one arm hanging off the back of his chair, head leaned as far back as he could that he could still see the sheets and sheets of numbers lined up in front of him.

His suspicions were confirmed when Wonwoo groaned a few hours later, running his hands through his hair and scraping the skin of his scalp with his nails. “Everything is one number in my head now, the number ‘x’. I don’t think I could even count to ten at this point.”

“It’s just a bunch of basic arithmetic with some letters substituted in place of the numbers,” Junhui said as placating as he could, losing his last health pack and switching over on his phone to read a webtoon.

“Can you imagine reading some words with the syllables replaced by numbers? That’d be impossible, just like all of this.” Wonwoo dropped his chin to the surface of the table, blowing air outward to fan the eraser shavings from his work. He turned his cheek to press against the paper, pouting. “Actually, that reminds me. I know you’re all about these numbers, but why didn’t you just stick with a social sciences major? Coming to a new country, if you had done like foreign languages or something, you could have been sitting a test on Hanja and they’d have the same meanings as Chinese characters so you could have aced that without studying.”

“Yes, because I knew everything about the Korean education system as soon as I got here, saw into the future, and realized that my background would prepare me for that portion of the CSAT,” Junhui said sarcastically. He lowered until his head was rested comfortably on the pillows. “And you said it yourself, I’m all about the numbers.”

By the time Wonwoo finally finished his problem sets, stretched, and turned to ask Junhui when he would be mailing out his university applications, Junhui had fallen asleep, phone still clutched in one hand, head cradled in the other against Wonwoo’s sheets.

Wonwoo sighed, resting his elbow back on the edge of the desk, and leaning his jaw against his fist. For a few moments, he stared at the rise and fall of Junhui’s chest, the usually broad shoulders curled inward. Nothing about the image in front of him was out of place, not Junhui’s long hair fanned out across the pillow, and not his long limbs stretched out across what was really a tiny mattress. Taken together with the books scattered around the room, the photographs, the lighting, he looked like he was meant to be there.

He turned back to his notes, marking the pages and closing each of them carefully, piling them into neat stacks for what was finished and what still needed doing. He put down his pens, not bothering to change out of his clothes, and padded over to the bed. Wonwoo plucked the phone out of Junhui’s hand and placed it on the table without a sound. When he lifted Junhui’s limbs up, it was slowly, as he took care to not arrange him in uncomfortable positions as he tucked him under the thin summer blanket, shifting him sideways so he too could sleep between the sheets and sleep.

Despite Wonwoo’s efforts, Junhui still sleepily muttered, “I should go back to my room,” once he was settled.

“Just stay,” Wonwoo said softly, “my house is your house.”

“Hm…” He rolled over, shirt dipping down to expose smooth skin and sharp collarbones.

Wonwoo’s eyelids drooped to half-closed, and he darted his tongue out quickly to wet his lips. Sleep was a long time coming for him that night.

For Junhui, who was already asleep, there was mostly a lack of situational awareness. Early in the morning, only a few hours past midnight, he roused a little, flailing his arm out to catch the butterfly in his dream that was circling higher and higher above his head, his entire body spasming as his dream-self attempted to jump. His hand caught something that shifted due to being struck, and the movement startled Junhui fully awake, eyes focusing in the dark with only a sliver of moonlight coming in from between the curtains.

The lump beside him swatted at his hand and rolled over. “Sleep,” Wonwoo drawled, “Sleeeep.”

Junhui had to swallow heavily at their proximity, the warmth of Wonwoo’s knee pressed against his thigh unfamiliar, if not uncomfortable. It sent weird jolts up and down his spine, an electric current where their skin was pressed together.

The last time Junhui had shared a bed with anyone was so long ago, maybe not since middle school with his best friend. Back then they had fought over the covers and Junhui had felt cramped the entire time. But Wonwoo was bony and slim and despite the fact that their arms and legs were pressed together on the tiny mattress, didn’t feel like he was taking up too much of Junhui’s personal space. Didn’t feel like Junhui was taking up too much of _his_ personal space. All he felt was tingly, in his stomach and all over his body, just under the skin, like butterflies were in flight inside him, replacing his insides, and covering him on the outside, crawling up and down his limbs and covering his skin.

The butterflies overcame him, lulling Junhui back into his dreams once more.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

He could get used to the days of relaxing too easily, enjoying the time off where he didn’t get rudely woken up by his alarm clock blaring, getting in his full nine hours of sleep. It was something he was going to have to relish and he lounged in bed daily before getting through some warm ups to keep himself limber and going through his study plans for the day. They were mostly Wonwoo’s study plans, adapted a little because Junhui didn’t need to focus so much on the humanities subjects for the scholastic aptitude tests, as long as he kept his marks up in school. 

They spent more time together than apart, studying together in the library, dancing together in the studio (although sometimes Junhui spent half those times dicking around while Wonwoo flew across the room with his jeté entrelacés), eating meals together in the cafeteria or their rooms. The only time that they weren’t together was when they slept, but even then they weren’t that far away from each other, separated by a single hallway. Sometimes, one of them would fall asleep in the other’s bedroom anyway, and on those days Junhui slept best.

“We’re two weeks in now, but by the end of this summer we’re going to be sick of each other’s faces, aren’t we?” Junhui asked, sprawled out on the floor and surrounded by practice papers.

“You say that like I’m looking at you instead of my notes when I’m studying,” Wonwoo muttered, pointedly not looking up to respond. “Face it, you’re secretly gloating inside that you get to spend so much time in my amazing presence. It’s a present to you.”

Junhui sighed, faux mournfully. “I think I’m becoming immune to your shitty puns. I might actually find them kind of funny now. I no longer recognize the person I am.”

When he checked his phone, he had received one message from his mother asking about how he was doing, one from Feng Jun that was simply a picture of his summer homework, and then about half a dozen messages from his father chastising him for ignoring their messages and reminding him of his responsibility to the family that start off angry and get progressively more apologetic until the last one is just two emoticons: one crying face and a broken heart. Junhui looked over at Wonwoo, lying on his stomach with his feet up and crossed over each other on the bed, biting onto the back of his hand while reading. It wasn’t like he’d understand what they were saying, anyway.

“Do you mind some background noise?” He asked, a cursory question really because it was his room and his bed and Wonwoo could study elsewhere if he really wanted.

Wonwoo waved his hand dismissively and went back to tapping a pen against his chin.

“Studying with your friend?” Junhui’s mom asked sleepily when their video chat connected. She was still in bed, the headboard and pillows behind her stacked high. 

“Mom? Why are you still in bed? And still wearing your pyjamas? Are you on holiday?” 

“I’m in Yangyang’s bed, he’s sick so I took the day off work to look after him.” 

Junhui’s first response was worry, wondering if his little brother was okay. He was ashamed to admit it, but his second emotion was a twinge of envy stemming from Feng Jun being able to be cared for by their parents, while Junhui had been facing any kind of pain or sickness head on and alone since he moved to Korea. “It’s summer, how did he get sick when the weather’s so warm?” Junhui asked. “Is he okay? He sent me a message on WeChat, shouldn’t he be sleeping?”

“He’s sleeping now. He woke up for a little bit so I could feed him something to eat, but he’s resting again.” She turned the screen towards him, head sticking out from under covers that were way too warm for summer, tiny forehead scrunched. “He’s been hanging around a lot in places with the air conditioning turned on full blast, he probably caught the cold from all the changes in temperature.” 

“Does he have a fever?” Junhui asked, frowning. He didn’t bother correcting her about the fact that viruses and bacteria didn’t transfer just because of temperature and catching a cold required coming into contact with germs. It was true enough that his immune system was probably weakened, anyway. 

“Just a little.” She said, before tightening the old cardigan she was wearing around her shoulders. The butterfly design across the chest seemed familiar and comforting. “I’m hoping he’ll sweat it out under some blankets. But I’m with him so he’s fine, the more important question is how have _you_ been?”

He nodded. “Fine. The weather’s not as humid as it is in Guangzhou but it’s still pretty hot. At least the air isn’t quite as smoggy as in Shenzhen.”

“Are you eating well? You look thinner.” Her voice sounded tired, a little worn around the edges.

“It’s probably just from me sweating out all my water weight,” Junhui joked, trying to keep things light.

“Well, as long as you’re eating well. Don’t overwork yourself.” She sighed. “I’m sitting here, an entire country away from my son, who’s growing up into becoming a more and more mature young man every day. Now I have to search hard for things to worry about.” A gentle smile came to her lips. “Has your handsome face attracted someone special yet?” Her eyes flickered sideways, and the motion was caught in the lag of the video. “Do you have a little friend to introduce me to?”

Junhui’s voice suddenly vanished, and he forced his mouth shut as he mentally prepared not to blurt something that might make her worried. He clenched his fists, darting a glance sideways even though he knew Wonwoo couldn’t understand what they were saying. After that he could only swallow, waiting for the inevitable tightness in his chest and wash of discomfort to settle in his stomach.

He waited, a moment, the another, but it never came. When he uncurled his fingers, the thoughts of wide smiles and long flowing hair didn’t leave him choked up at all. He didn’t let himself think too deeply about what that meant, but that was a good sign, he was moving forward.

“Wen Junhui? Why aren’t you replying? Do you have something to tell your mother?”

His thoughts turned to her words again, and he clocked the fact that she hadn’t said girlfriend, had kept the words gender neutral. Had she always known?

Junhui immediately felt guilty about feeling envious of Feng Jun, because even after his little brother was born, even when he’d spent more and more time locking the door of his room, she’d always made him her everything. And he was thankful for that, genuinely.

But he’d run off to a different country because he was stupid, and young, and naïve, and she must’ve known all of the reasons, because why else would she have let him leave?

“I’m fine,” he said, meaning it. Junhui wished, briefly, that there was a positive answer to her other question, that he didn’t have a debilitating fear of long-term relationships, and that his commitment issues didn’t have commitment issues. “But no, of course I’d tell you first, mom.”

“Alright,” she agreed reluctantly, after giving him a moment’s more time to say something. “If you promise…”

“Yes mom, I promise.”

She smiled weakly at him. “Even if it’s not a certain person, I’d like to know what your friends are like too. I know there’s a language difference, but Yangyang says you tell him about all of your supposedly cool friends…You’re not just making them up right?”

Junhui snorted. What was Feng Jun doing anyway, telling their mom about things like that. “Eh, I’ve never told you when Feng Jun lied about finishing his school work, but he blabs to you about what I say to him? What a little traitor.”

His mom covered her laugh behind one hand.

“Anyway look, I’m with someone now right? And I didn’t know this was going to come up before hand so clearly it’s not like I have no friends.” He made a sulky face at her, blowing air inside his cheeks to go for a cute effect.

“That’s true.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I just remember Xiao Ming was so nice to you whenever I saw you two together. I want to know that you have friends who are watching your back since your parents can’t be next to you.”

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, it seemed. Get over one disaster in his life, but the storm at the root of it all hadn’t washed away. “I’ll be sure to let my friends know you think they should parent me,” Junhui said with a snort, his fingers twitching nervously against the collar of his shirt.

She laughed at him good-naturedly. “Good. Do you still talk to him by the way? You were such good friends.”

Junhui blinked slowly, and tried to take a quiet breath.

He swallowed twice, the scent of ozone filling his nose, sharp and overwhelming, almost like chlorine. He took another breath. That was certainly not a question he had been expecting to get from his mother.

“Does M—” The name got stuck in his throat, and he tried a different approach. “Does he still bring you fruit? Did you know he wasn’t coming here?” He demanded.

She sat back. “What are you talking about? He hasn’t come by since you left but…what do you mean going over there? Do you mean to Korea?” Her features formed a troubled look, wrinkles folding in her forehead as she tried to puzzle out the pieces. “Lao Yao never said anything about him leaving China. I always thought that was your idea only…Do you mean…?”

“Never mind,” Junhui said gruffly, quickly. That was more revealing than she’d probably meant it to be. He didn’t want to think about what that meant. Had everyone around him always known except for him? Had they _all_ just decided not to tell him?

That was why he had trust issues.

“If you don’t talk to him anymore—”

“No.” Junhui cut her off. That wasn’t what he had said to her, he hadn’t said anything about it really. It wasn’t that he didn’t talk to Yao Mingming anymore. It was that he wouldn’t ever face him again, not if Junhui could help it.

His mom looked taken aback at his tone, however, and she gave him an apologetic look. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have…When are we going to see you next, son?”

The change in subject didn’t change anything with regards to how Junhui felt. The lingering bitterness he felt, the severed connection he had with China, none of that had shifted. The brewing storm clouds, they had been hanging overhead for years and years, and they would never disperse; the pungent aroma left behind by lightning piercing the air would cling to his olfactory system indefinitely. That was China. That was the place he had _meant_ to leave behind, and he wasn’t going to look back.

“You know, I haven’t seen you since we last visited you. And you never come back to China.” She pouted at him. For some reason it made Junhui feel old.

Junhui clenched his fists. Yeah. There was a reason for that. “Mom,” he complained exasperatedly, “I have practice. There’s the final performance and we have university entrance exams coming up, it’s not the Chinese entrance exams but it’s still really important. I have to study for that and on top of the dancing…it’s not really a normal high school so I have to do extra work if I want to be able to graduate and _do_ something with my life. I can’t just drop everything here and fly over on a whim.”

Her mouth settled into a delicate frown. “Oh I know, Huizi, your dear old mom just misses you. Don’t you miss her?”

“Mom. Mom, of course I miss you. I love you, and Yangyang, and dad. I miss all of you, okay? I swear.”

“Alright then. It’s almost time to eat, go feed that handsome boy on your bed some food, he looks like he needs it! Take care of yourself too, my son.”

She cut off the video feed shortly after Junhui said goodbye in return, and it was all over too quickly. A blush fought its way up his neck, spreading to his cheeks and ears, and his fingers, warm as well, trembled in front of his eyes. Those memories, he had shoved them deep down into a locked box for a reason. The fact that his mother still had access to the key jolted him.

“Your mom?” Wonwoo asked. His tone was cool and calm, as always, the eye in the centre of the storm Junhui couldn’t get away from. Well, at least, even if he were surrounded by wind and rain, there was a tiny piece of solace.

Junhui nodded quickly, and squeezed his fingers over his knees, trying to stop his body from shaking. Forget about those lockers. The rainclouds. The storm. Forget about China. Forget China.

It helped when Wonwoo’s voice washed over Junhui like the spray of the showers after a particularly grueling rehearsal. “Miss her?” Wonwoo peered at him with a mischievous smirk, twirling a pencil between his fingers lazily, one knee bent and thigh pressed against his torso. “You’re not crying are you?” Wonwoo teased.

“No,” Junhui replied roughly, feeling dread build in his stomach by the second. The eye of the storm was nice, but it didn’t make the storm less inevitable.

Wonwoo was off the bed and on his feet within seconds, striding hurriedly over to where Junhui was sitting. “Shit.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you not laugh at your own joke before,” Junhui whispered, voice scratchy and weirdly high pitched.

“Yeah, only you seem to have the effect of making me lose my mind,” Wonwoo murmured, slowly peeling each of Junhui’s fingers up off his knees, one at a time. He kneeled in front of him and slipped his own fingers in the spaces between Junhui’s knuckles so he could hold something and feel it squeeze back. Junhui’s fingers automatically weakened. It was one thing to dig his nails hard enough into his own joints to leave scratch marks and bruises, but he had no right to mar Wonwoo’s skin.

“I’m not crying.”

Wonwoo looked up at Junhui and Junhui stared back defiantly in an attempt to demonstrate that there were no tears in his eyes. “I know you’re not crying,” he said. It wasn’t a placating tone, not even a soothing one. It was serious, just as serious as Wonwoo’s eyes, as they continued to stare up at Junhui’s face, mouth thinned into a flat line. Junhui wanted to fix Wonwoo’s bangs but his fingers were stiff and it felt like if he let go of Wonwoo’s hands, he wouldn’t have an anchor to the calmness anymore, that he’d be taken by the waves and the rain, and he’d never claw his way back to shore.

Junhui nodded, not sure what else he could say. He didn’t have the emotional strength, much less the words, to explain why he was so tense.

“Do—” Wonwoo cut himself off quickly. He rubbed his thumbs gently side to side to side over the fleshy area between Junhui’s thumbs and index fingers, and that helped ground Junhui a little more.

‘ _Please don’t ask if I want to talk about it_ ,’ Junhui thought to himself.

“Do you want to go grab something to eat?” Wonwoo maneuvered his hands to drag Junhui up, standing up neatly with the strength of his quadriceps, all slinky and smooth like the dancer he was. He tugged Junhui along.

Junhui wobbled as he got up off the chair, the stiffness not just in his fingers, but all over his body. His toes were numb. “You’re the nicest person I know.”

Wonwoo’s hand on his wrist tightened and loosened in a flash, but he didn’t stop holding onto Junhui, nor did he stop guiding him forward toward the door. “What?” He asked distractedly, head turning so Junhui could see the disbelieving blinks in his eyes.

“I think my own mother thinks you’re better looking than I am,” Junhui joked, abandoning his previous train of thought. He focused his eyes to the side of Wonwoo’s face, narrowing in on the mole at the top of his neck as he avoided looking at Wonwoo’s eyes.

The laughter that fell from Wonwoo’s lips was warm and rich, a sound of pure delight startled out of him from Junhui’s rapid-fire changes in mood. At least to Junhui, Wonwoo really did look good with a pink tinge to his cheeks.

But that kind of thinking…that was what got Junhui so worked up in the first place, wasn’t it? He couldn’t be developing feelings again, not when every single time he had ever gotten to that point of proximity, the heavens unleashed a torrential downpour on him. He was finished with causing localized natural disasters, finished with the catastrophes that could never be avoided when it came to him and the people around him. He couldn’t, he _couldn’t_.

He had been denying it for half a year, but Jeon Wonwoo’s smiling face still gave Wen Junhui’s stomach butterflies. And it was getting harder and harder to ignore that feeling each day. But he had to. He _had to_.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

The din in the dining hall was unusual to Junhui’s ears with the end of summer vacation, students packed over all of the seats where he had been able to leisurely choose any table he wanted scant days before. It meant they had to talk louder to hear each other, and it forced him to squint through all the faces before he picked out Wonwoo with his head down, a book in his lap while Jihoon napped against his shoulder. His heart beat sped up to match the increase in his walking pace, stomach churning loudly. Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it.

“I miss my mom’s cooking already,” Soonyoung complained from behind him, banging everything loudly as he settled down for lunch, waking Jihoon from his slumber.

“How the fuck— This is your second meal back,” Jihoon muttered darkly, eyes still mostly closed.

“I know, but there’s never enough, and they never put my favourite side dishes together, and my mom always gives me the best cuts of meat.” Soonyoung always had a way of whining that made his voice cut above the crowd or background noise. Well, Soonyoung in general seemed to always be able to grab people’s attention, for better or worse.

“Well, Hoon-ah,” Wonwoo said, looking up from his book and jerking his arm up and down. “I don’t know if you should really be complaining about Soonyoung’s eating habits when it’s the first day back and you’re already this sleepy.”

“God damn,” Jihoon groaned, sitting upright and rubbing his face with his hands. “I was pretty much nocturnal over the break, and resetting to be functioning on the same schedules as you stupid peasants is fucking hard okay?”

“It’s not like this is a new phenomenon,” Soonyoung said smugly, “it’s been how many holidays? And he still hasn’t learned.”

Jihoon, eyes closed, smiled with feigned innocence. “Just because I’m tired, Kwon Soonyoung, doesn’t mean I can’t beat your fucking ass to within an inch of your life.”

“He’s actually scarier when he’s sleep deprived,” Junhui muttered.

Wonwoo snorted and kicked Junhui’s shin underneath the table. Instead of feeling pain in his bones, Junhui felt a shiver up his spine. Okay, so, ignoring things was going to be difficult. That didn’t mean it was going to be impossible.

“Well, Soonyoung, you could try bribing Wonwoo for a share of his food,” Junhui suggested, looking up to see Wonwoo still smiling at his snide comment. He put down his chopsticks in order to use his fingers to pick off a grain of rice that was stuck to Wonwoo’s chin, and stuck it into his own mouth.

“Hm,” Soonyoung said. “Hmmm.”

“It wasn’t that profound an idea, I’m sure you can come up with something to entice him with that doesn’t require you to blow a fuse with your brain cells,” Junhui said.

Jihoon snorted. “Too late.”

“I’m just thinking, has this always been a thing? Or is it new? When did it happen? Why didn’t I notice?” He was pointing toward Wonwoo’s face, and when Junhui’s eyes followed Soonyoung’s finger, he noticed there was more food stuck to the side of Wonwoo’s mouth.

Junhui licked at the pad of his thumb before reaching his hand out to swipe at the corner of Wonwoo’s lips. “I know right? Wonwoo’s so neat with everything, all his clothes are folded into tiny stacks. But you’re such a messy eater, were you always this messy or did we just not notice?”

Soonyoung blinked. He shook his head slowly. “That wasn’t what I was asking about at all.” He paused, an alarmed expression flashing across his face. “Also, why on earth are you feeding him more food, when he gets bigger portions than all of us combined?”

Wonwoo’s lips closed around Junhui’s spoonful of glass noodles without his eyes looking up, engrossed in his book once again. Junhui put down his spoon, switched over to his chopsticks, and ate a piece of his own seaweed before replying to Soonyoung. “I have this theory, right, that the cafeteria ahjummas are really just feeding him extra because they feel sorry for him for not being able to eat seafood. The rest of us don’t have extensive allergies like that, you know?”

“And he’s thin,” Jihoon supplied helpfully.

“Okay…” Soonyoung began carefully, “That might explain why the three middle-aged women over there pile his tray sky high…but why are _you_ helping them out?”

Junhui shrugged his shoulders and took a sip of soup. “I help everyone. I told you a way to get better food, didn’t I?”

“Well, it turns out you’re the expert, so you tell me what I’m supposed to bribe Wonwoo-goon with so that he gives me the pieces of food he likes to eat most.”

“How do you bribe anyone?” Junhui asked. “You have to offer them something better. Let me show you.” He poked Wonwoo in the arm with the butt end of a chopstick. Wonwoo spared him a second’s glance to glare, but quickly returned to his reading. “Hey, I have a packet of the extra spicy ramyun in my room, trade you for a piece of the spare ribs.”

Without lifting his eyes from the page, Wonwoo picked up a piece of meat with his spoon, and held it out in Junhui’s direction. Junhui plucked it up with his chopsticks and plopped it into his mouth, nibbling contentedly.

“What just happened.” Soonyoung said, not really asking a question. “If I had food to bribe him with, wouldn’t I just eat it myself because the point is I’m hungry?”

“No, it’s like swapping rations.” Junhui laid out an empty cup, a balled up napkin, and a small dish of kimchi in front of him. “Say you wanted to make a cake and you had three bags of flour. That’s great, but to make a cake you need butter, eggs, maybe sugar. So the three bags of flour aren’t as useful and you trade away two for some other ingredients. Now you have less flour, but you also have the ingredients to make a cake.”

“Sorry, you lost me at the part about baking.”

“So, the entire thing?” Junhui asked peevishly.

Soonyoung rolled his eyes. “Correct. How am I supposed to follow an analogy like that?”

“The analogy was fine, it’s just that you’re not clever enough to get it,” Wonwoo said, palm lifted up for a high five with Junhui before he had even finished his sentence.

“Jihoonie, they’re ganging up on me again, you have to help me,” Soonyoung whined.

“We’re not,” Junhui and Wonwoo said simultaneously.

“They are!” He wailed. “This is freaky! You guys have become like telepathic over the summer or something.”

“We haven’t,” they said, at the same time once again.

“What the fuck.” Jihoon’s eyes opened wide.

“Yes! See?” Soonyoung crowed. “I’ve finally convinced Jihoon to side with me on something.”

“Shut up, asshole,” Jihoon said scathingly, not bothering to waste energy on giving him one of his signature looks. “I just realized what date it was.”

“The first day back to classes…?” Junhui ventured. He had finished eating and trotted his tray forward a little so Wonwoo could finish the rice that remained.

“No. Well yes, but I mean we have our third meetings with Han-saem in a week or so, don’t we?”

“Yup,” Wonwoo said helpfully.

Jihoon slammed his face into his own open palm.

“Oh come on, there’s no way you expect me to believe that you two don’t have everything all ready and perfect and shit,” Junhui said, head resting on the palm of one hand, weight shifted toward a single elbow.

“Nah, the choreo is coming along fine,” Soonyoung said, done with licking his own wounds at always being on the losing side, and by himself to boot. “But Jihoonie hates him.”

“You mean, more than he normally hates just about everyone?”

“Oh. Well, I don’t know about that one, he doesn’t hate me!”

“I hate you the fucking most, you shithead,” Jihoon mumbled.

Soonyoung ignored him, pressing on. “He just doesn’t like the fact that he believes so much in a set structured way of doing things. Like, we could have used one of his unreleased compositions from one of his previous classes for the piece, but there was no precedent for that so he had to come up with something completely different just for this choreography.”

“Hm. How’s your project going anyway?”

“We’re not keeners like you! We were working on other stuff last semester so we only have maybe less than half done. But we have an entire stockpile of repertoire that no one’s seen before we can use if we get really pressed for time.” Soonyoung chomped down on a piece of cucumber and chewed noisily.

“Jihoon is keen as fuck, though,” Junhui noted with confusion.

“I’m also busy as all hell,” Jihoon muttered. “Trying to get all the materials for two portfolios together was a nightmare. What’s even the point of post-secondary education, if university applications take this much time, I could just be interning with studios instead.”

“Yeah, Wonwoo pulled out like half his hair over the summer putting together university application stuff.”

“Wait, aren’t you going pro, Wonwoo-goon? I thought you got past prelim auditions?” Soonyoung asked, smacking his lips from the sourness of the pickled cabbage.

Wonwoo shrugged, took a bite of rice, and declined to comment. Soonyoung seemed willing to let it slide. He was picking off the last remnants of his lunch, not letting a single thing remain on his tray.

If Wonwoo hadn’t told Mingyu about his post-high school graduation plans, nor Soonyoung or Jihoon, what did that mean? What did it mean that he’d told Junhui? And not only had he not told them, he didn’t look like he was planning on sharing this piece of information anytime soon. Junhui frowned.

Jihoon scowled at Soonyoung. “Ugh, yah! You! Stop stuffing your face, let’s go make sure what we have is so fucking flawless that goddamn ‘teacher’ doesn’t have a single thing he can say to me.” He carefully wrapped one hand around Soonyoung’s elbow, eliciting a loud yelp, but Soonyoung quickly complied, picking up his tray and shuffled his feet. He had tuned into Jihoon’s agitation and started to make increasingly crass jokes about Han-seonsaeng-nim as they walked. Jihoon pursed his lips to dampen down the smile blooming on his face from his own amusement and dragged Soonyoung forward.

Junhui snorted as he watched them go. “Yeah, Jihoon really looks like he hates Soonyoung the most, huh?”

Wonwoo finally looked up from his book and squinted out over the sea of students. “Honestly, I think they’re good for each other. Hoon-ah and Soon-ah.” He laughed to himself.

“Squabbling and insults and all?”

Wonwoo shrugged. “The fighting keeps things healthy.”

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“Crap, I hate starting new semesters,” Soohee mumbled as Junhui took a spot beside her at the barre.

He stretched out his triceps, arm splayed across across his chest and smiled encouragingly at her. “Well, I don’t know that anyone really likes coming back to school, but at least we get to see our friends, right?”

“No, I mean, it’s not just that.” She said, shaking her head morosely. She had one leg pulled high behind her, one hand supporting the knee as she stretched out her back. Junhui hadn’t noticed how flexible she was before. “We always get a new set of exercises that I have to memorize. So basically as soon as I’ve finally gotten down the last set barre and centre-work, we start anew and I’m struggling to figure out what the order of things in the pliés is again.” She let out a huff of air and switched legs.

Junhui had always been pretty good at memorizing choreography, so that hadn’t ever occurred to him. But now that he considered her words, he realized she always did seem to do fine in class near the end of term or just before midterms, and struggled more soon after breaks. He had always assumed that was more of a fitness thing, but he could see why struggling to remember the exercises would make it hard to focus on improving the actual movements. “Would it help if I spent some time going over the exercises with you before and after class?”

“Oh no!” She said quickly. “There’s no way I can ask you do that, you already spent so much time tutoring me in calculus this year.” She laughed. “I’m just complaining about nothing, although Hyejin did agree with me, by the way, that you’re an incredibly good teacher.”

Junhui hummed. “Alright, if you won’t agree to that, how about for now you just try to follow along with what I’m doing. I’ll try my best not to make mistakes.” He raised his arm, beckoning Wonwoo over from where he was putting down his stuff.

“Thanks,” she murmured. “Is it obvious that normally I just try to copy whoever’s in front?”

“Nah, we all do that.”

Wonwoo had stepped up to stand beside Junhui, and he leaned his elbow up on Junhui’s shoulder.

“Wonwoo-ya, can you stand on Soohee’s other side today so she has someone to follow the exercises from?” Junhui tilted his head to point in that direction.

He reached up with his elbow and dug it into the side of Junhui’s neck.

“Well?” Junhui prompted, swatting at Wonwoo’s forearm absent-mindedly with one hand.

Wonwoo’s eyes slid from Junhui’s face to look at Soohee. He looked back at Junhui, mouth set in a worried moue, which hollowed his cheeks and made his cheekbones more prominent. It was the concern in his eyes that made the decision for him. “Okay,” he said finally, enunciating the word politely.

“I really appreciate it!” She said quickly, ducking her head. Wonwoo simply nodded, expression blank as he flashed his gaze toward her once more before quickly returning his focus to the top of Junhui’s spine. He continued to linger beside Junhui during his stretches and warm ups.

It wasn’t until after Soonyoung and Jihoon came barrelling into the classroom, seconds from being late, that Wonwoo finally left to take up the spot at the end of the barre so that Soohee was sandwiched between two dancers who knew what their routine was, and for the first time in the years she had been at this school, she wasn’t picked on by the teacher for not picking up the exercises they had been taught the previous week quickly enough. She was filled with relief at being able to just tendu, without thinking about what came next. Second? Third? Was her arm supposed to be above her head or to the side? The questions didn’t need her to consider them if she could just follow whoever was in front of her.

By the time they got to centre exercises, there was a sheen of sweat glistening on Soonyoung’s skin that Junhui could see from a barre away. He pointed it out to Wonwoo, who smirked and dragged him by the elbow to the front of the room so they could stand in the first row for the exercises. Jihoon had done the same to Soonyoung so they made up four fifths of the line. Junhui shot a glance backward at Soohee, who tucked herself into the third row, wondering if he should help her, but she gave him a quick thumbs up and he turned back to the front.

“You didn’t befriend me just to use me for my skills right?” Wonwoo murmured jokingly into Junhui’s ear.

“Does it look like I need it?” Junhui turned to whisper back, his ponytail catching Wonwoo in the face.

Wonwoo snorted quietly, hands on his waist as they waited for their teacher to get things started, and Junhui mentally went over the positions he needed to get. The last part of the next exercise included pirouettes en dehors as well as en dedans, and he had been working carefully on his turns ever since it had become apparent that he was a step behind Wonwoo for their partnered choreography.

Despite being off for the summer break, he nailed the quadruple.

It didn’t come as a huge surprise, but as he covered in relevé, working leg still in passé and head snapped back to the front of the room for the fourth time, he couldn’t help but smile. And then do it again on the other side, finishing with the last notes of the phrase with his feet tucked into a neat fifth position, lowering his arms into prepatory before running off to the side of the room with the others so that the next row could begin.

Junhui watched the other students in their class with the smile still hanging on his lips. He was tempted to dangle his arms off the barre, even if he would get yelled at, just from the satisfied feeling in his gut. Those pirouettes had been a long time coming, and he didn’t think he would have managed them if Wonwoo hadn’t given him the extra push at the beginning of the year.

He got yelled at anyway. “Moon Joonhwi, congratulations on hitting a quadruple pirouette, but have you forgotten what our dress code is?”

“Shit,” Jihoon whispered out of the corner of his mouth with a snicker. “Someone’s in trouble~”

Soonyoung’s voice covered up Jihoon’s cackling with a, “Dude, seriously, quads?”

Junhui, forgetting himself a little, started to smirk, before straightening up and looking into Jung-saem’s eyes. “Sorry sir?”

“Ballet dancers don’t wear jewellery! Go take out your earrings before joining us for the next exercise. Be glad there’s no other punishment, I’m going easy on you today because of that quad!”

Called out by the teacher like an elementary school student again. He ducked his head as Jihoon and Soonyoung continued to muffle their laughter and turned to walk over to his things.

“Better hope that taking them out doesn’t make you lose all your turning abilities,” Soonyoung joked.

“I’m not Jeonghan-hyung, I don’t complain that getting a haircut suddenly changes my weight and balance to turn” Junhui shot back.

Soonyoung nearly fell into the bar with surprise, and Jihoon’s head snapped upward to peer curiously at Junhui.

Junhui’s hands reached up toward his ears self-consciously, flinching when they touched the earrings Wonwoo had given him as a birthday present. He hadn’t taken the earrings out all summer vacation, it had become a part of his routine to put them in sometime during the mornings, and molded more into part of his general appearance than as an accessory to his outfit. They were nice earrings, and the person who had given them to him had been nice as well.

Or he had been, until he’d witnessed Junhui being scolded and started laughing at him.

“That was totally your fault,” he’d whispered to Wonwoo at the end of the centre exercises.

“The earrings? Nope. All you. I can’t believe you forgot something like that. I can’t believe you got chastised in front of the class too.” There was no other way to describe the noises Wonwoo was making – he was giggling.

It was one thing to be laughed at by Soonyoung and Jihoon, who were always making jokes at someone’s expense or another. But that wasn’t it. It wasn’t that Junhui was used to be laughed at by them, and it wasn’t like he and Wonwoo never laughed at each other. But something about the situation that irritated him more than just a little, and whatever it was, it also made Junhui lash out. He smacked the back of his arm into Wonwoo’s belly with greater force than could be considered playful.

“Ow, that actually hurt. Don’t do that,” Wonwoo complained quietly, stepping back and away from Junhui. The stinging in Junhui’s own arm confirmed the truth of those words.

That only made him want to attack further. They were getting ready for partnered corner work now, and people were distracted as they tried to go over the sequences, or figured out the groups they were forming. Junhui took the opportunity to jab Wonwoo in the sides lightning fast, fingers finding soft spots and digging in harder than he normally would.

“Seriously, Junhui, stop, that actually hurts, okay, I get it, stop.”

If you can’t take the heat, don’t stand in the kitchen. Junhui sliced the side of his hand into Wonwoo’s back, and Wonwoo winced.

“I said stop! Why are you such a baby, Junhui, what’s wrong with you?” He hissed, loud enough to draw the attention of some of the students nearby, and certainly catching Jihoon and Soonyoung unawares. They both stopped whatever they were doing with their heads bowed together to stare at Junhui, eyes flickering between him and Wonwoo.

Wonwoo rubbed the spot on his back that Junhui had hit and Junhui suddenly regretted his actions. Before he could apologize, Wonwoo had sent him a dark look, mouth downturned and eyes in a deathly glare before stomping off to find someone else to partner with.

Junhui hadn’t partnered with someone other than Wonwoo since the end of April.

Whatever, that was fine, Wonwoo could sulk all he wanted about it, he was the one who laughed first. Junhui knew that, and he knew Wonwoo knew it too. Even if it was irrational to retaliate physically, Wonwoo had lashed out too. So it wasn’t Junhui’s fault. It _wasn’t_.

He couldn’t believe all that had happened just because of a pair of earrings. And now he was partner-less, to boot.

“Say, Soohee, do you have a partner yet?”

“Uh, no?” She blinked at him. It had been a while since they danced together, mostly because Junhui was usually at the front now, while she tended to stick to the back so she could watch more groups and practice first. “Weren’t you going with Wonwoo?”

“Nah, let’s do it together, like old times.” He flashed her a tiny smile, and started marking the choreography so she could follow.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

Mingyu found Junhui curled up with a book, squashed into a corner of a sofa in the third year lounge room and using the arm of the couch as a makeshift table. His bag was placed beside him, taking up half a seat so no one could really come bother him in his boxed in space.

Now was really not the time for a chat, and Soonyoung had known to give him a wide berth at mealtimes, keeping the topics of conversation subdued. Jihoon wasn’t the kind of person who spoke unnecessarily in the first place, and thus far that had been helping Junhui avoid talking.

In the end it was Mingyu who broke down barriers instead of letting them stay raised, who had plucked up the knapsack and set it on the ground, completely unconcerned. He sat beside Junhui, who had been staring at the same page of the novel for the past ten minutes, eyes scanning up and down the page uncomprehendingly. His brain wasn’t processing anything whatsoever, and even though he knew, rationally, that he wanted to be alone, he couldn’t even be bothered to shoo Mingyu away. He hadn’t been thinking about why he was angry, only that he _was_ , and he really didn’t want to talk about it.

“Junhui-hyung,” Mingyu began, voice as chipper as ever, “do you know where Wonwoo-hyung is?” Nothing could bring the kid down, apparently, not the scowl on Junhui’s face, probably not even if the school was on fire or if the world was ending. He was always so happy and cheerful, and normally, Junhui liked that fact about him.

Across the low glass coffee table, Hyejin turned her head. She was sat mostly in Soohee’s lap, and cupped Soohee’s ear as she whispered something that neither Mingyu nor Junhui could hear. Soohee stopped moving her pencil long enough to look up at the two across from them, before looking back down and absent-mindedly adjusting Hyejin’s braids.

“No,” Junhui said shortly. He didn’t want to be gruff with Mingyu, who didn’t deserve all of his frustration. Really, Mingyu was just a cute puppy. Irritation seeped out of his pores nonetheless.

“No?” Mingyu repeated. He frowned, and raised one eyebrow. “Why not?”

“Why would I know where he is? Does it look like I’m his keeper? Why don’t _you_ know where he is?” Junhui demanded, slamming the cover of his book closed.

“Jeez hyung, why are you so mad? I haven’t done anything wrong!” Mingyu protested.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know where he is okay? Because we’re fighting!”

Mingyu recoiled. “Fighting?” He repeated again.

“Yes, that’s just what I just said, isn’t it? What are you?” Junhui exploded. “A parrot?”

“Junhui-hyung~” Mingyu wrapped his arms around Junhui’s bicep, lips pulled into a pout and eyes wide and round to maximize the cute puppy effect. “I’m sorry okay? Please don’t be angry at me anymore.”

Junhui took a deep breath, looked at Mingyu’s face, and shrunk backward against the couch cushions. “Sorry,” he muttered dejectedly, deflating like a popped balloon.

“You say it!” Hyejin whispered loudly from the other sofa.

“Oh no!” Mingyu whined. “Don’t be sad either, Junhui hyung’s my favourite when he’s happy. Or telling jokes, that parrot thing was pretty funny except your voice was also kind of scary.”

Junhui sighed. “Alright Mingyu-ya, I’m fine, is there anything else you needed?”

“You know,” Soohee cut in finally, Hyejin pumping her fists and leaning her head against Soohee’s shoulder, “I passed by Wonwoo in the hallway earlier while he was like trying to shred up paper napkins with his fingernails or something, he really was making a bit of a mess on the floor…That’s beside the point. I tried to thank him for helping me with the exercises from ballet class, but he just kind of glared at me and told me I should really be thanking you and walked away like he was in a rush.”

Mingyu and Junhui both turned to look at her. Junhui’s eyes were narrowed, unsure of where she was going with her anecdote, and Mingyu’s confused expression remained largely unchanged.

“The thing that stuck out to me though, was that in class, right, he’s always smiling and being really nice to you.”

“Yes,” Junhui said loudly, “Thank you for that Park Soohee, I’m visibly upset right now because I’m angry at my friend, and you want to sing his praises from the rooftops.”

Soohee frowned. “Well, I’m not praising him actually, I’m telling you…” She didn’t finish. But she didn’t really need to.

Junhui had learned something from her recently, and that was the fact that there was always more to a person’s story than just what you saw on the surface. And Wonwoo, the more Junhui peeled back layers of Wonwoo’s personality, the more layers he seemed to find. Or puzzle pieces. It was getting difficult to work out and even more challenging to try to _not care_.

“What _I_ want to know,” Hyejin said, interrupting his thoughts to waggle a finger in front of her own nose, “is are you two—?” She was cut off by her own yelp as Soohee digging her fingers into Hyejin’s wrist. Soohee shook her head as imperceptibly as she could.

“Are we what?” Junhui asked, a frown still on his face. He was only getting more displeased as the conversation wore on with all of the different voices competing with what was inside his head for attention.

“Wait!” Mingyu interrupted. “But why are you two fighting?”

Junhui’s eyebrows knitted together and his forehead crinkled. He really hadn’t been focused on the reasoning or logistics, or even the events that unfolded that led to the current state of affairs. It was his emotions that had bubbled up and rendered him so irate. In the end he settled on a brisk, “He’s just an asshole, alright?”

“I don’t think you really believe that, Junhui-hyung,” Mingyu said matter-of-factly.

“Oh is your name suddenly Junhui now too, Mingyu-ya? Not just a parrot but a clone, one who knows what’s going on in my head?”

Mingyu kissed his teeth. “Ugh. I can’t believe I have to go through this when I wanted was to eat with you guys at dinner.” Mingyu folded his arms over his chest, and Junhui turned his head to look up at the sulk across his face.

Nothing was said for a few moments, Mingyu now annoyed with Junhui’s anger, and Junhui uncertain what to do with an unhappy Mingyu.

“Look…When you find him,” Junhui said finally, pulling his backpack up onto his lap and unzipping it to retrieve a plastic bag. “Give him this, okay?”

Mingyu’s eyes widened when the package landed on his lap, and he raised it with both hands, feeling the weight and heft. “What is it?”

Junhui narrowed his eyes and stuck out a warning finger. “Don’t you dare take one. I counted how many my mother sent in the box, so I’ll know if you stole one to eat yourself, Kim Mingyu.”

“Alright, alright, I understand. But seriously, what’s inside?”

“They’re spicy tofu snacks from China. Wonwoo skipped lunch and dinner so he’s probably starving and being a martyr in his room. He won’t come out to eat so you gotta bring the food to him. And then go eat your own dinner, don’t take from him. I’m warning you!” Junhui said sternly, tightening the knot at the top of the bag with a tug. He zipped his backpack up again after shoving the book he was reading inside, and stood quickly.

“How do you know he skipped lunch and dinner?” Mingyu asked, mouth open, and looking generally overwhelmed by Junhui and his antics. He was moving very quickly and quite forcefully.

“Of course I know that,” Junhui replied, “What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t notice something like that?”

Mingyu’s lips pulled downward quickly and he shifted his eyes from side to side. “The kind of friend I am, I guess,” he said in a tiny voice. “But aren’t you two supposed to be fighting?” Mingyu asked, voice louder this time.

“Yes,” Junhui said with some exasperation, “I’m pretty sure I just told you that.”

Hyejin was speaking only to Soohee but her voice carried. “How does he know that he was skipping meals then?”

“He’s smart, he knows the answer to that question,” Soohee said cryptically.

Junhui shot them a look but didn’t say anything, pretending he hadn’t heard. Noticing that your friend hadn’t been eating and wanting them to be well fed was not caring too much. That wasn’t.

“Okay and how do you know where he is?” Mingyu asked, as a follow up.

“I don’t know where he is! I also just told you that!” Junhui stomped his feet as he maneuvered across the common room.

“Hang on, but you also just told me I’d find him in his room!” Mingyu called out behind him.

Junhui didn’t respond with words, but rather, a slam of the door.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

When the fingers that slid past his neck to tug one side of the headphones out of his ear, Junhui startled at the touch, mostly from the coldness of the metal ring, and then closed his eyes at the prolonged shiver sent down his spine, but he knew who had caused it without looking up.

He knew those fingers. And, he supposed, there could be only one person awake this early on a Saturday morning and willing to walk out to the main school building to rehearse in the dance studios.

Junhui had been sitting in the empty room, waiting, not entirely sure if they were returning to their regular rehearsal schedule or not, since they hadn’t really discussed it at the end of summer break. Other than shooting secret looks in the direction of his desk in class, or watching him during their dance classes, Junhui hadn’t interacted with Wonwoo at all that week. It felt like he was bursting at the seams, stuffed full of things to say, with no one to say them to. He kept turning to the side during meals or in his room, whenever something came to mind, and then having to turn back when he realized that there was no one to share his thoughts with. Now that he had Wonwoo nearby, however, all of the things he had in mind had flown the coop, and even though he worked his mouth, no sounds were forthcoming.

He didn’t dare glance over his shoulder to check Wonwoo’s expression, and Wonwoo seemed content to simply sit beside him, legs strewn straight out in front of him, arms behind his body to support his weight. He bobbed his head up and down in time with the music, having taken one of the earbuds for his own, and Junhui could feel the jerking movements of the wires against his arm. That was a good sign for him being in a positive mood, at least.

When the song ended, Wonwoo plucked the earbud out and held it in front of him. Junhui lifted his palm up, but instead of depositing the wires in a pool on his hand, Wonwoo reached over and took Junhui’s earbud out as well. He aligned the two together, and wrapped them around Junhui’s fingers until it was a tight spool.

“So that they don’t get tangled,” Wonwoo explained in a small voice, eyes focused in front of him. He could feel Junhui’s questioning look at the side of his ear without having to see it for himself.

Junhui peered at Wonwoo’s face. His lips were drawn tightly together, and Junhui immediately regretted looking. There wasn’t a word for the look on his face other than ‘cute’.

He jerked his head up and out to stare into the corner of the room when Wonwoo finished neatly tying his earphones together and turned to look at Junhui for approval.

“A Big Bang fan, huh?” Wonwoo asked, looking away again and drawing his knees up toward his chest.

“Ye-ah?” Junhui’s voice broke halfway through the sound, and he cleared his throat awkwardly.

Wonwoo hummed. “I didn’t peg you as the type.”

“What, to listen to popular music?” Junhui’s voice was still a little scratchy, but he felt relieved at hearing Wonwoo’s voice again. Just the sound made him feel like he was filling up with sunshine, warm and happy as he slid his phone away.

“Do you remember when…Nevermind.” Wonwoo stopped speaking after that. He rocked back and forth so that his weight alternated between his tailbone and his toes. There was something small about him, curled up like that, and so vulnerable that it raised Junhui’s hackles, like he needed to draw on all the martial arts training he’d ever had in order to attack anyone who dared to hurt him.

It wasn’t that Wonwoo was helpless in the face of others, not even that he needed protecting. But he was precious, and Junhui sincerely believed that precious things ought to be treasured and treated with utter care.

Not like the way Junhui had treated him.

God, he deserved to be slapped. There was poking, and then there was hitting someone hard enough that they told you to stop repeatedly and Junhui had definitely crossed the line. He didn’t know what Wonwoo was even doing there, Junhui should have been the one to go to him with a fruit platter in order to apologize to him for causing him pain.

“I’m really sorry about hitting you,” Junhui said, at the exact moment that Wonwoo opened his mouth to say, “I’m sorry I laughed at you for getting scolded by the teacher.”

They looked at each other, each blinking back their shock. Wonwoo reacted fastest, bursting into laughter and turning his head away to muffle the sound into his hand. “It hurt but it wasn’t like you maimed me or anything!” Wonwoo said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t like Soonyoung wasn’t laughing at me too, but I didn’t end up hitting him or anything did I?” Junhui said sullenly. “I’m really sorry, that was a pretty fucked up thing for me to do, lashing out at you, I mean.” He didn’t understand how Wonwoo could be laughing.

“I’m telling you that it’s fine, okay? I shouldn’t have provoked you. But if you’re willing to put that behind us…?”

Junhui nodded quickly, even though he didn’t think Wonwoo should have forgiven him so easily. That made him think about the need for his martial arts abilities again, and how much Wonwoo was willing to put up with. He shouldn’t have to put up with anything. “If you’re willing to forgive me, I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“Hey,” Wonwoo said gently, grabbing at Junhui’s hands. “I’m not flawless, alright? I was in the wrong too. We both made mistakes, but let’s stop fighting now. I just…when Mingyu brought me the snacks from you, I realized how much I wanted us to stop fighting. Thank you for those, by the way, they were delicious.”

Junhui’s insides ached at the feeling in his fingertips, they were sitting so close in the first place, and with their palms pressed together, the feeling of the sun had quickly turned from warmth to like being on fire. Everywhere his skin was in contact with Wonwoo’s, Junhui felt like he was burning up. It was that heat that pushed his thoughts out of him, and he blurted, “I missed you.”

Wonwoo looked down at his toes, chuckling with amusement even though Junhui hadn’t meant that as a joke. When he looked up again, however, his eyes were sincere. “Me too.” He released Junhui’s fingers and hooked his arms around his own torso, fingers clinging to his shoulder blades.

Junhui hadn’t thought he could be more tightly folded, but he had been wrong.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know how I got through this week. Everything was a blur because you weren’t beside me.” His voice was very very quiet. “I didn’t like that. I wasn’t used to it. Even though we didn’t know each other before this year, you’re one of my closest friends now.” He looked up to gauge Junhui’s reaction.

Junhui was biting onto his lower lip, unsure of what to do with his hands. There was panic filling the empty spaces inside of him, as he came around to the idea that they’d been building a dependency on each other. That was…dangerous. Junhui knew that all meetings ended in partings, and the kind of relationship you dreaded losing was the type that made you hurt the most. He’d experienced it before, after all.

Yet even when they weren’t holding hands, Junhui couldn’t let Wonwoo go. As much as acknowledging his attachment wasn’t an option, it seemed a farfetched tale to say he could live without him. The past week had been brutal on him, turning his nerves into a wreck. It was all a mess inside his head now, his memory of each day foggy, and more than anything, that hurt too. But the atmosphere, it had gotten too heavy, settling down so thickly onto Junhui’s shoulders that he could feel its weight. The mood made him nervous, and he tried to make a joke to lighten things up.

“Close friends? With how much we fight?”

“I told you, fighting keeps things healthy. Although, I guess Jihoon and Soonyoung aren’t the definition of ‘healthy relationship’.” Wonwoo snorted to himself. But I mean, I’m sure your parents fight. You probably fight with your parents. That’s just, people have conflicts over things all the time. That’s normal. It’s natural. As long as you can make up afterward, there’s no problem.”

“That’s fair enough. Do you argue with your parents? You don’t really seem like the type.”

“I was a brat when I was in middle school. Did really badly in all my classes, always woke up late, got angry about everything, only played instead of studying. But I like to think I’m better now? I really appreciate everything my parents have done for me, and paying an expensive tuition to send me to an arts high school is just one item on that list. They’ve worked hard all their lives to provide for me, so I have to work even harder now to repay them.” There was a ghost of a smile on his lips and a ghost of a butterfly in Junhui’s stomach. “What about you, you said that your parents didn’t want you to go into academia, right?”

“We haven’t really…fought about that. I think they’re just nervous about me pursuing anything in Korea. We disagreed over me coming here in the first place, and every decision that made it seem like it was a permanent move for me probably just made them feel more worried? So they voiced disapproval, but there wasn’t really any anger.” He fidgeted with the hair elastic on his wrist. “But really, I think she wanted kind of what every mom wants for their kid, you know? A white picket fence, a loving spouse, supporting family, enough wealth to at least get by, happiness. I don’t blame her for that. And in the end, even if she didn’t want me to leave China, she still let me make my own choices.”

“Can I ask why you came to Korea?”

Junhui jumped, fingers tensing as they worked through his hair, midway through pulling his bangs back into a neat ponytail. No one had asked him that since he’d moved, and his mother had accepted the reasoning he had been feeding her at face value. He had told her it was a good opportunity to improve, that the arts curriculums were different, that he’d have a better future. He couldn’t even remember how much of it had been true, not anymore, he was so desperate to get away. In present day, he let his hair fall back onto his shoulders, and looked down. He opened his mouth once, and closed it again, an onslaught of memories rushing over him and preventing him from speaking.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Wonwoo said, quickly sensing Junhui’s discomfort.

The distress was rolling off him in waves, that didn’t take much sleuthing to figure out.

Junhui’s mind replayed the sound of lockers slamming, the scuff of shoes on the floor, and the smell of ozone, always the smell of ozone. Wetness on his face, in his hair, water soaking through his clothes, and that lingering scent that lightning left behind after it had ripped through the air on a hot and humid day, the storm clouds collecting around his head. Junhui squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. “I want to tell you,” he said quietly. “But I don’t think I can tell you right now. If I promise to one day explain, is that enough?”

“Of course. More than.” Wonwoo looked thoughtful, combing his fingers through the ends of Junhui’s hair. He wasn’t as experienced as Mingyu was with special styles or braids, but he could do enough to help Junhui put it into a ponytail. He trailed his fingers over his scalp to flatten it over the top of his head, and teased apart any knots that his fingers caught onto. When he was satisfied that it was neat enough, Wonwoo slid the elastic off of Junhui’s proffered wrist and looped it around until it was tight enough to hold firm. “For what it’s worth, I think you’d do pretty well in academia. Scarily good with numbers, and a pretty good teacher to boot.”

“Yeah?” Junhui smiled shyly.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll let my mom know you said so, the next time I call her,” Junhui teased.

“Does she know my name?” Wonwoo asked curiously. “Wait, would you tell her my Korean name or try to translate it into Chinese? What’s my Chinese name?”

“Well,” Junhui said in a teasing tone, “I _was_ just going to introduce you as ‘the handsome one’.”

Wonwoo clacked his tongue against his teeth approvingly and smirked. “Yup, that’s my name.”

“But,” Junhui continued, tapping his chin. “What’s the Hanja for Wonwoo, do you know?”

“Yeah, here.” He took his hand and traced out the characters onto Junhui’s palm, blinking up at him expectantly.

“Yuanyuan!” Junhui exclaimed. “That’s what I’ll call you.”

“Yuanyuan?” Wonwoo imitated. “Does that mean something?”

“Yeah, it’ll be your nickname! It’s a cute way of saying ‘round’.”

“ _Round_?” Wonwoo’s disbelief was written in the way his eyes widened and his nose scrunched up. “No, take it back, just call me ‘the handsome one’, please.”

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

The care package his mother had sent him arrived at the end of September, perfect timing for the Mid-Autumn Festival. They had a few days of break, and Junhui spent most of the time studying for their upcoming exams, but also digging into as much food as he could. He arrived at the door to Minghao’s room with a bag of snacks things he’d pulled out because he knew Minghao liked them, or Junhui didn’t like, and because he had so many extra treats.

“Yes!” Minghao yelled when he saw what Junhui was carrying. “Come here, take some of these mooncakes from me, Jieqiong dropped like a dozen into my lap and these things are not only terrible for you, they’re way too sweet for one person to consume.”

Junhui wasn’t a huge fan of mooncakes, regardless of the filling, so he sidled around Minghao’s arm, which was extended and holding one out to him, in order to dump the contents of the bag he was holding onto Minghao’s desk.

“Oooh!” Sufficiently distracted, Minghao threw the mooncake back to his stack and spread them around, looking intently for something. He frowned when his search came up short. “Didn’t you say your mom went back to Chongqing last month? Did she not pick up any of the spicy dried tofu pieces?”

“I didn’t realize you liked those so much!” Junhui shook his head and ripped open a bag of purple sweet potato chips. He held it in front of Minghao’s nose, and Minghao took an entire handful. “It turns out Wonwoo really really likes them so I let him have them all.”

“Ugh, hyung,” Minghao whined, “you’re the worst. Wonwoo-hyung hoards food like a dragon, there’s no one he’s going to let me have any.”

“Sorry Xiao Hao.” Junhui ruffled his hair with amusement. “I’ll remember to save you some next time.

“You better,” he muttered darkly, grabbing another fistful of chips and shoving them all into his mouth. There were enough of them that he had trouble close his lips around the last one, but that didn’t stop him from pouting, stuffed cheeks and all.

“Don’t spite me brat, just because you know these are my favourite. Next time I just won’t share any of them with you,” Junhui warned.

Minghao chewed quickly, and swallowed before sticking out his tongue. Junhui lunged forward, pulling Minghao into a headlock, and they struggled against each other until Minghao yanked himself away, out of reach.

He sighed deeply. “And to think, I actually placed you on the dresser.”

“The dresser? Am I sitting on your furniture now?” Junhui asked with excitement.

“Yeah,” Minghao said, waving his hand lightly, “That picture from your birthday, remember? I got it printed out since you were complaining about us not having any pictures together, and it’s got its own place of honour now and whatnot.”

Junhui clucked his tongue. “Wasn’t that photo taken on a phone?” He took the few steps over and lifted up the frame to inspect the image in question. “Did you really go get a digital picture printed because you’re such a corny sap?”

“Hey!” Minghao protested. “You were the one who was complaining about not being in any of the pictures I had lying around, so I went and did the thing you wanted me to do. You can’t now make fun of me for it, that’s not how this works.”

“Oh I’ll tease you about whatever I want,” Junhui said, laughing.

It was forced laughter, because looking at the picture in his hand had made his heart catch in his throat. It wasn’t often that he could get a visible look at himself, much less see how he looked amongst others. The photograph was different from looking into a mirror, like it had captured a piece of him instead of just a reflection.

There were a lot of faces to distract him, really, all of the smiling. To know that there were people around him who were happy, to spend that day with him and share in the joy, that made Junhui’s heart swell. It didn’t make his heart leap out of his chest, however. No, that responsibility rested on Junhui’s shoulders alone, and he almost choked when he noticed. It was the way his eyes were focused on someone else, instead of facing into the camera, the expression on his face soft and earnest, a more genuine smile than most posed pictures could snap. He looked happy. Happier than he had seen himself in years. And of course that look was drawn out of him by staring at Jeon Wonwoo.

That photo, it was taken in June. It had been months ago, before he had realized and started his attempt to repress his feelings. If that was the case, then he was fine. No one else had a copy of the photo anyway, and it wasn’t like Minghao actually looked at the things hung up in his room carefully.

He took a deep breath. “Like now, I’m going to tease you about Xiao Zhou!” Junhui said, trying to make his voice sound as jaunty as possible to cover up the wobble. “Your arm is around her in this picture, I can’t believe I never noticed!”

Minghao wasn’t quite fooled. “Are you crying because you’re that emotional about you being on the dresser of honour?”

Junhui’s head whipped around. “No! Stop projecting your emotions on me.”

“I can’t believe you’re allergic to feelings, hyung,” Minghao said. “The only way this could be worse would be if you were allergic to dogs.”

“Wonwoo’s not a fan of dogs,” he contributed absent-mindedly, twirling a long strand of hair around his pinky finger. His ends were hitting his collarbones now, it might have been time to start thinking about doing something with it.

Minghao kissed his teeth. “Wonwoo-hyung is very very lucky he makes you so happy, because otherwise there is no way I would let him date you.”

“What?” Junhui dropped his hand quickly. Had Minghao noticed the way he looked in the photograph after all?

“I’m just joking,” he grumbled. “I guess I’m bitter that as soon as I finally admitted that I liked you most, Wonwoo-hyung took my place as your best friend. I think, honestly, seeing you get closer to him, studying with him, eating with him, and stuff was what made me stay silent about Jieqiong. I know I always joked about it being annoying, but not having you nag me about everything was frankly worse.”

Junhui scrunched up his face and narrowed his eyes, simultaneously relieved and unamused. “That’s a weird way to joke about something like that.”

Minghao rolled his eyes. “As if you’ve got a good sense of humour.”

“Mingyu thinks my jokes are funny.”

“Mingyu doesn’t have any perspective, his best friend’s jokes are even worse than yours.”

“Why can’t you be more like Mingyu, Xiao Hao, why can’t you say your best friend’s jokes are hilarious and just laugh?” Junhui poked him in the forehead and laughed.

Minghao jumped up, trying to push Junhui’s hand away. “So we are right? Best friends?”

“It’s not that I don’t think categorizations are useful,” Junhui hesitated. His hair elastic snapped against his wrist as he fidgeted. “But that particular label of ‘best friend’…I don’t much like it.” He squirmed under Minghao’s gaze. “Let’s be good friends. Great friends. Close friends? Is that okay?”

“Is this about your best friend back in China, the one I’m cuter than by far?” Minghao leaned forward in his seat.

There was a stinging sensation in Junhui’s face, but he batted away the emotions to to smile charmingly and make a joke. Maybe he really was allergic to feelings. Or scared. He’d never considered himself a coward before.

“Is it funny how even if someone is your _best_ friend, they could end up not being, first and foremost, a _good_ friend?” Junhui asked.

“No, not at all.” Minghao shook his head at him, eyes large and unblinking. “I told you you don’t have a very good sense of humour.”

Junhui laughed in a way that didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re not just cuter than he was. You’re a better friend too.”

“Considering how often you call me a brat, he must have been awful.”

Awful had not been a word Junhui had previously thought about when it came to Mingming. But then, Junhui mostly tried not to think about him at all.

“Brats can be good friends, I suppose.”

“You know, I’m really glad you’re here now. I mean, I was glad you were here in the first place, but for someone to treat you badly enough that you have an aversion to the concept of friendship…” Minghao sat back in his seat again, legs crossed and foot tapping the floor. He lifted his hands behind his head and smiled. “Everything makes sense now.”

“What makes sense?”

“Like, why you don’t associate China with home. Why you never go back. Why the only thing you ever seem to miss from there is the food.” Minghao shot him a mischievous look. “Why your concept of social niceties is so weird.”

“If that’s your way of saying I have no friends, Xiao Hao…”

Minghao grinned at him. “Well you have me. And Wonwoo-hyung. And Soonyoung-hyung. And Mingyu! Maybe even Jihoon-hyung, not that I can understand how you could possibly land yourself in his good books, not when he seems to hate everyone. We don’t have to use the best friend label at all, right? But that doesn’t mean you don’t have people who care about you, _ge_.”

They finished another bag of purple sweet potato chips, and Junhui didn’t even bother trying to study. It was nicer just to live in the moment with someone who considered him a friend.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

His mom. Wonwoo. Minghao. That was three separate conversations with three different individuals about Mingming in less than a month, which was probably more times than Junhui had been forced to think about Mingming in the past three years.

It figured that the subject would come up as soon as he managed to make peace about what happened with Jeonghan-hyung.

Even though Mingming had become such a frequent topic of conversation, that hadn’t dogged Junhui’s steps nearly as badly as Minghao’s joke. It was, he suspected, the timing of it. Being teased for dating Wonwoo when he’d just seen a picture of himself looking at Wonwoo with an expression of _something_ in his eyes. Each, in and of itself, was a strong enough punch, but string them together in back to back rounds and Junhui was knocked out entirely.

It wasn’t a surprise. That feeling in his stomach had started from the very first time Wonwoo had smiled at him. Junhui didn’t like to reflect on things like that, but he had enough self-awareness to know that he couldn’t keep pretending his swirling insides were just indigestion forever. It was, for lack of another word, attraction, it was deep, something that compelled whole-body reactions from him, physiological, psychological, emotional. The hold on him had steadily built until Wonwoo’s smile filled his entire heart until there was little room for much else. But along with the fluttering of wings in Junhui’s stomach was a sense of dread, that had crept up incrementally at the same rate as the steady climb of Wonwoo’s role in Junhui’s life. It was the kind of dread that was inseparable from liking too much something you shouldn’t.

And surely, both were reaching their peaks. He just hadn’t thought it’d be so soon.

They finished the choreography on a Saturday like any other, sometime in the morning, as was their norm. The moment passed by anticlimactically. Their ending had been decided on for a month, and they finished the last movement at the end of a phrase, but in the middle of a musical section, simply because they hadn’t worked linearly. The fact that they were done didn’t hit either of them until Wonwoo had nodded, translation, let’s start from the top, and hit the music. They had simply danced and reached the ending notes without pause in between.

“We’re finished?” Junhui had said, more a question than a statement.

Wonwoo furrowed his eyebrows briefly before raising them and widening his eyes. His mouth split into a grin, all of his teeth on display and he jumped onto Junhui without warning, legs sitting around his hips, one arm around Junhui’s shoulders, the other up above his head and pumping the air enthusiastically.

Junhui laughed, patting Wonwoo’s back with one hand, and gripping tightly around his waist with the other, briefly panicked he would fall and hurt himself. They were very very close, although Junhui supposed he should have been used to that by now. They’d shared single mattress beds. But he didn’t dare cheer until Wonwoo had leapt back down to land on the balls of his feet, sleek and smooth, holding his breath the entire while beforehand.

“We’re finished~” They singsonged at each other, even as the music began again in the background. The sounds of their mirth were, at least in the initial moments, louder than the piano or the cello.

“I never congratulated you on your quad,” Wonwoo said finally, once they had both quieted and stopped bouncing up and down.

“Oh yeah! I got my quad.” Junhui chuckled and flashed a ‘V’ with his fingers. “It’s impressive right?”

Wonwoo smiled. “Yeah, you worked hard on it.”

Honestly, considering the amount of backflips his stomach did whenever Junhui saw it, and all the arrhythmia and swelling it gave his chest, Wonwoo’s grin was going to be the death of him.

“Wanna see it in action again?” Junhui joked. “We should run the whole thing through a few times. Just because we _can_.”

“Sounds good to me.” He tapped his chin. “Junhui, it looks _good_ doesn’t it? I think we can get first place at the year end show.”

“Damn good. So freaking good. Jihoon’s going to swear so much when he sees. If we can perfect the musicality and sync and all the emotional presentation stuff, we’ll definitely win.”

“Maybe we can work on synchronization later…?”

“You want to study for the SAT right?” Junhui gave him two thumbs up. “If we do a few run throughs today and then a few refreshers, maybe we can use Saturdays to study together instead of spending so many hours practicing? We’ll get you to first place in dance and first place in grades, don’t you worry.”

“If you think your technique can handle not being drilled by me at least once a week, sure,” Wonwoo joked before becoming serious again. “No, I mean, I would really appreciate that.”

“Then let’s go~~~ld!”

Wonwoo lunged forwards in a threat to smack him for the shitty pun. His humour really was rubbing off on Junhui, with all the time they spent together. But it wasn’t just the humour. It was their movement, their way of thinking. Junhui’s thoughts these days naturally contained phrases like ‘Wonwoo would never’ or ‘Wonwoo would definitely agree’. And so even in their dancing, Junhui thought they looked a lot like reflections of each other, Junhui a little more smooth, Wonwoo a little more forceful, together like two halves of a whole— That was a dangerous line of thinking. That was like knowing that Wonwoo’s dancing had always been beautiful to him and wondering if it was the dancing that had pulled Junhui to Wonwoo or just something inherent about Wonwoo himself that lured him in. They did, after all, work a lot better together than one might have thought for two boys who had little more in common than a shared interest in classical dance. More dangerous thinking.

He mostly stopped thinking at all, after that, letting himself be consumed by the music and the motions, each pose and position, each jump and turn, every extension of the arm, tilt of the head, even a single-minded concentration on the location for his gaze. The piece was playing on loop, and although they paused briefly for breaks, they mostly went through the entire song over and over again, until Junhui felt that the entire piece, the music, and both his and Wonwoo’s choreography was the blood coursing through his very veins. Junhui lived it, breathed it, believed it.

When they finally came to a halt, both panting heavily, hands on knees as their chests expanded and collapsed, it was with a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. Junhui’s eyes stayed fixed to the ground, the sweat beading at his forehead and dripping off his nose. The back of his neck was damp, and his hair was wet as well, the ends of his ponytail clinging to the back of his shirt the same way his shirt was plastered to his skin. He didn’t see Wonwoo dragging himself to grab a drink from his water bottle, but he heard the sound of canvas shoes padding across the spring floors and he could picture the bob of the cartilage in Wonwoo’s neck as his throat worked to force the liquid down. How many dangerous thoughts could one person have in the span of an hour anyway?

“Hey, since we still have this studio for a couple hours, do you remember that thing that Kim-saem was showing us in the video last week? That solo coda from _Le Corsaire_?”

Junhui groaned, and sank to a sitting position. He knew exactly where this conversation was going. Maybe he should pretend to have forgotten.

Wonwoo put down his water bottle when he heard the thud of Junhui’s limbs crashing to the floor, and swiveled on his toes to turn back and look at him. He peered down over his nose and stuck up one eyebrow in question.

“I literally _just_ got down my quad, and you want me to try _540s _? Are you _insane_.” __ He phrased it like a declaration instead of a question, because there was no doubt in Junhui’s mind that Jeon Wonwoo was crazy. He could privately admit that he kind of liked that about him.

“So you remember! And you know what I was going to say, that’s kind of creepy.” Wonwoo clapped his hands together once, and held them in that position, like he was pleading with Junhui.

“I just want to try it once? Just to see if I can, if it’s physically possible you know? Seeing it isn’t believing it, I have to actually go for it.”

Junhui frowned. “What do you want me to do? Spot you? I don’t know that I’d be able to help, it’d be better if we just laid down mats everywhere.”

“No! You should try this with me, it’ll help me figure out the mechanics of this better.”

Even as he stood and started pulling mats to the centre of the room, stacking them and covering as large amount of the surface as possible, Junhui was groaning internally. Wonwoo always was trying to push the envelope. He’d found something new to challenge, and Junhui was going to be irrationally angry at Kim-saem for a week about this. Out loud, he had no protests. It was, quite literally, a case of Wonwoo asking him to jump, and Junhui responding ‘how high?’

Going through jump drills with Wonwoo was exactly like how Junhui had imagined he’d be trained in pirouettes. Junhui spent a while psyching himself up, telling himself that as long as he put his mind to something, he could do it, and then jumping into the air and landing back down without having turned. Wonwoo was in the midst of practicing barrel turns in the air in preparation for the spinning force a 540 would take and he stopped when he noticed Junhui’s frustration.

“Calm down, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get it or something.”

Junhui nodded, took a deep breath, and tried all his visualization techniques. He looked up and for a while and watched to see what Wonwoo was up to, and it looked something more like a 540 than not. At least neither of them had ended up crashing into the mats yet. No injuries? No problems.

After that came the smile.

With most of his annoyance at his life dispelled, Junhui started jumping again. He ended up just doing a tornado kick, really, body more vertical than horizontal, but it looked enough like a 540 that Wonwoo blinked at him.

“Have you been…holding out on me?”

He shook his head. “No, there’s just a martial arts trick that’s kind of similar. Actually, I haven’t done one in years and I didn’t think I could still pull it off.” Junhui lowered his gaze when he saw the encouraging upward tug of Wonwoo’s lips. “It’s not exactly the same thing but maybe if I walk you through how to do that you can learn how to do a 540 and I can live in peace.”

“Alright, go on then.”

Junhui did the jump a few times to get the feel for it, mind attuned to what his body was doing. “Well, you gotta get your back muscles involved, but I think even more than that it’s the swing in your legs…”

Between Wonwoo’s prowess in jumps and turns, and Junhui’s wushu background, the two of them managed to work out the gist of it together until Wonwoo was flying through the air like a pinwheel, leg arcing in a full circle and torso whipping around in flight, hovering, as always before his descent.

“Let’s stop here,” Wonwoo said, finally, and Junhui didn’t need to be told twice. He sagged to the mats on the ground, lying face down, and made a low whining noise in the back of his throat.

Without warning, cold thumbs dug into his trapezius muscles. Junhui arched his back and stuck out his head to get away from what was jabbing into his muscles, before he was gently smacked on the arm and the thumbs proceeded to make careful circular motions, easing away the knots and the tension.

“Your posture is always the first thing to go whenever you get tired.”

“What?” Junhui mumbled into the ground.

“I can always tell when you’re starting to lag.” Wonwoo’s fingers worked outward away from his neck and squeezed Junhui’s shoulders comfortingly before moving back in. “Your neck gets really stiff.” He rubbed up and down the columns of skin on either side of his spinal cord, the heat and the loss of strain making Junhui feel tingly. “Also, your shoulders rise up, and your back starts to furl inward. Then I know we’ve reached your breaking point even if you don’t say anything.”

Junhui turned his head sideways so his words wouldn’t be muffled. “But then how would you know I’m tired?”

“I can just tell.” Just like Junhui could tell Wonwoo was smiling slightly now, his hands kneading the muscles above Junhui’s shoulder blades like it was putty. Junhui certainly felt well worked, becoming mushy and stuck to the ground.

“Mmm,” his hum was drawn out, and ended with a particularly satisfied sigh. Junhui felt soft and pliable, almost boneless under Wonwoo’s hands, and his head was light and airy. It was nice, being massaged like this. He was comfortable, but beyond that, there was a profound blissfulness about being this relaxed. Wonwoo’s fingers were deft but also strong, and it made Junhui wonder what it would feel like to have him touch bare skin, or other parts of him.

“Feels good?” There was laughter in Wonwoo’s voice and all of Junhui’s organs did a collective somersault inside his belly. Dangerous dangerous dangerous. Junhui groaned instead of responding.

“Alright then,” Wonwoo said, slapping his palm to the space between Junhui’s shoulder blades. “Up you get.” He stood and extended an arm to help Junhui get up. “You can repay me by buying me lunch!”

Junhui stood and listed sideways from how loose he felt. Wonwoo caught him sideways with one arm and let Junhui drape himself over his back, chin tucked over Wonwoo’s shoulder. Wonwoo touching him was very nice. Touching Wonwoo was also very nice. “I’ll buy you food from the caf,” Junhui mumbled woozily.

“Wow, this cheapskate.” He nudged Junhui away from him, batting his hands off his arms to escape from supporting his weight. When he looked back, Junhui was wearing a small pout. Wonwoo laughed and grabbed his wrist, dragging Junhui forward. “Something spicy. Take me out to that Chinese restaurant and buy me spicy food.”

Take him out? That was a little too close to home.

__

 

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

‘ _breakfast?_ ’

‘ _nope_ ’  
‘ _not possible_ ’  
‘ _here lies wen junhui_  
dead in bed  
rip in pieces’

‘ _what happened???_ ’  
‘ _i’m on my way DON’T MOVE_ ’

As if he could. Junhui had woken up in the middle of the night from a tightness in his waist from turning over and by the time it was morning, his entire back was stiff. Trying to get up sent excruciating pain radiating through his torso, pain that pinned his hips largely to the bed. Moving was restricted to mostly lateral shuffling along his mattress, and getting off his bed was no longer within the realm of physical possibilities. Maybe if he went back to sleep he’d find out all of this was just a bad dream.

“Junhui-ya, open the door!” Came Wonwoo’s muffled yelling, accompanied by closed-fisted banging.

That surely would have woken him up, so probably not a dream then. He groaned and reached out an arm to find the keycard on his bedside table while keeping his face buried in his pillow. After finally finding it, he carefully slid sideways and around to get to the foot of his bed and flicked the plastic across the floor to slide out the gap from underneath his door.

“What on earth?” It took Wonwoo a little while to pick it up and fumble the lock open but eventually he barged into Junhui’s room, hair sticking up and a wild look in his eyes. “Are you okay? Are you dying?”

Junhui flapped a hand up and down and continued lying there in a flat plane, not willing to risk lifting up his head. “Still alive,” he grumbled, “unfortunately.”

A cold hand cupped the back of his neck and Junhui didn’t even flinch. “What happened? You don’t sound sick. Why are you still in bed?”

“I can barely move,” Junhui complained, “because everything _hurts_.”

“What?”

“My back,” Junhui moaned, “My baaaack.”

“Did you aggravate your old injury?” Wonwoo asked, panicking. His fingers poked gingerly down Junhui’s torso until he got to his lower back.

“Ow!” Junhui winced at the tenderness in his muscles where Wonwoo’s finger had been.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.” Wonwoo withdrew, standing up and rubbed his face. “I’m _really_ so so sorry, I didn’t think, I wasn’t thinking! I should have realized when you said it was like the old martial arts tricks you used to do that it could end up hurting you again.”

“Stop it.” Junhui shot him an annoyed huff. “Stop beating yourself up when it’s not your fault. Even I didn’t know that much twisting would leave me like this, okay? I should have been more careful.” He hadn’t considered the possibility that it was his old injury acting up, mostly because the pain was a global ache instead of a sharp sensation, but the possibility worried him. The initial injury had put him out for six months and their graduating performance was in half that time. He really hoped it wasn’t something that serious, because otherwise his and Wonwoo’s hard work would have been for naught.

“Okay, okay, think clearly, we have to get you to the infirmary.”

“And how do you suggest we get there, considering I can’t even get out of bed. Besides, is the doctor even in on Sundays?”

“No, but the nurse will be, and she’s seen enough dance-related injuries over the years that she’ll know what to do. And obviously I’m going to carry you, were you expecting to walk with the amount of pain you’re in?”

“What? Hold on a second!”

He was hoisted up onto Wonwoo’s back without being able to resist, really, arms slung over his shoulders and thighs around Wonwoo’s hips before he knew it. Wonwoo’s hands hooked underneath his knees and his back protested. Loudly.

“Wonwoo-ya…” Junhui muttered miserably, fingers clamping around each other to distract himself.

“It hurts right? I’m really sorry about everything, but you haven’t injured your spine, so I think the best thing we can do is get someone to look at you and give you treatment options.”

Junhui puffed out his face. “I could have just taken painkillers and waited this out with ice or something.”

“Don’t make me yell at you about taking care of yourself and not getting hurt.” The warning tone in Wonwoo’s voice vibrated dully against Junhui’s chest so that he was feeling every word as much as he heard it. “The most important thing to a dancer is their body, and it has to be healthy for them to use it.”

“Whatever. You didn’t need to come over in the first place then you wouldn’t be lugging me around like a piece of baggage.” Or suggest the possibility that it was a chronic problem and not something that would go away within a few days. He buried his face in the back of Wonwoo’s nape, nose pressed to the prominent bone at the base of his neck. When he breathed in, he could smell Wonwoo’s shampoo, a whiff of laundry detergent, and the clean musk of his skin, together a scent that calmed Junhui’s frayed nerves.

“The only reason you wake up in the morning to eat breakfast, there’s no way you’d refuse it unless something dreadful happened.”

That was true, he supposed. “Well, I wasn’t really dying.”

Wonwoo snorted. “The day you’re dying, I’m going to find you and kill you.”

It hurt to laugh, but Junhui couldn’t hold back the fit of giggles that gave him.

Luckily, the nurse reassured them both that it was a mild overuse and fatigue issue, rather than serious injury.

“We see things like this all the time, although more commonly during the weeks leading up to dance evaluations when people overwork themselves,” he explained, performing a series of checks over Junhui’s back with gloved fingers. “If it doesn’t get better you can come in and see the doctor, and she can take another look, get you sent for x-rays, double check it’s not a bone issue, maybe prescribe something for the pain. But based on what I’m seeing, there’s no tearing of the muscles.”

Junhui’s shoulders dropped with relief and he thanked him for his help. “Should I be icing it in the meantime?”

“Oh no,” he said quickly, “I mean, if you start seeing any signs of inflammation – swelling, you can ice for a little bit, but mostly that will just contribute stiffness.” He handed two plastic packs to Wonwoo. “Use these heat packs, you can just stick them in the microwave. On for about ten minutes, maximum twice an hour. Don’t leave it on for two long, but it should help with the pain. And you can get your friends to massage it out a little, help clear the lymph. Not if it’s too painful, though.”

“Alright. Wonwoo gives great massages,” Junhui murmured.

“Err, okay? Anyway, I’ll leave a note in your medical history file if you do come back so the doctor knows what I think.” He looked slightly taken aback and helped Junhui pull his shirt back on.

Wonwoo chuckled into the sleeve of his shirt and Junhui frowned. There was nothing wrong with a massage between friends.

“If you can manage, I think you should try to walk back. Rest as soon as you can in bed, but it will help with stiffness and range of motion if you move a little.”

Junhui winced as he stood but he nodded tightly and shuffled forward. Each step pulled at his waist uncomfortably, and he grabbed firmly onto Wonwoo when an arm was offered out to him for support.

“Let’s come back tomorrow to make sure that it’s nothing. I know he said that you’ll be okay, but just in case.”

“I don’t need to see her,” Junhui whined, “that’ll make me have to walk over here and I’d rather just be motionless, thanks. Anyway, I can just ask you for a second opinion can’t I? Dr. Jeon, what’s your professional diagnosis?”

“My professional diagnosis means nothing because I’m not a professional. Going to have to wait and see if I even make it into med school before we can think about that pipe dream.”

“Are you kidding? Of course you’ll make it. You’re the smartest person I know! You’re good at everything you put your mind to. Don’t question it, you have to have faith in yourself.”

Wonwoo laughed and squeezed Junhui’s free hand, the combination making Junhui a little light-headed. He stumbled forward and Wonwoo caught him, clucking his tongue. “I don’t care what that guy says, you’re hurting too much to be walking. I’m going to carry you back.”

“My knight in shining armour,” Junhui crowed as he was piggybacked again. He hummed happily into Wonwoo’s ear. “For what it’s worth I’m sorry for making you chauffeur me around like this, also for taking up so much time. I know you wanted to focus on studying at least until the CSAT date.”

“Don’t be silly. Your health was at stake here, that’s obviously more important. What kind of doctor would I be if I had let you go untreated? And see, ice wasn’t what you needed, aren’t you glad we got a real medical opinion before you made your condition worse?”

“It’s really not that big of a deal! I could have just looked that up online, I’m sure there are medical websites that could tell me the same thing,” he groused.

“You can’t trust everything you read on the internet! And can you get it into that thick skull of yours that you are a big deal, that you and your general well-being is important? If you’re not doing well I’m not going to be happy, okay?”

Junhui rolled his eyes but his heart rate had sped up seemingly exponentially. The guilt pooled in the bottom of his stomach was screaming at him to push Wonwoo away, force him to back to his own room so he could study, or even practice, because those were things Wonwoo needed to do to achieve his own goals, rather than wasting time tending to Junhui. Not to mention the fact that Wonwoo probably hadn’t eaten breakfast either. But it was impossible when Wonwoo said things like that, things that made Junhui feel important and accepted. Things that made Junhui feel like he had a place in this world, a place in _Wonwoo’s_ world. That was probably why Junhui had been falling for him so hard.

“I’m always doing well. In fact, I’m usually doing better than you in three of our classes, so maybe you should spend the rest of the day studying to catch up.”

“I will,” Wonwoo said, after a pretty large yawn. Somehow Junhui’s keycard was still in his possession and he let both of them in, which wasn’t exactly according to Junhui’s plan.

“How do you plan on doing that?” He sprawled out on the bed. “If you’re in my room you don’t have any of your books so what are you going to study from? The ceiling?”

Wonwoo chuckled, low and warm, and the delight it gave Junhui made him wiggle his toes. Forget painkillers, if Wonwoo could just keep smiling and laughing all the time, Junhui would be feeling better and dancing again within hours. It felt good to know that he was happy, even better to know that Junhui was the one who made him so amused. He was probably blushing by this point, and he was glad he was facedown so his pillow could hide his cheeks.

There was a dip in the bed, and Junhui peeked up to see Wonwoo sitting there, the pleased smile lingering on his face and Junhui had to shove his face back down into the bedding. Fingers carded through his hair gently but assuredly, carefully brushing it back and tucking wayward strands behind Junhui’s ears. That turned into a hand patting his head, smoothing down flyaways, and if Junhui’s back weren’t killing him, he’d probably have arched back and purred like a cat. When the petting stopped, he really did release a sad whine.

The reply he got was a loud yawn, and weight shifting behind him, and then a gust of air as a corner of the covers were lifted up and Wonwoo tucked himself in on Junhui’s bed. “I’m really tired for some reason, I think I used up all my energy carrying you around like a horse.” He stifled another, smaller, yawn. “After I recharge my battery I’ll head over to the caf to get something to eat, microwave the heat packs, and grab my notes so I can study while giving you a massage.”

It took a lot of effort, but Junhui rolled over until he was lying on his back. “That’s a really detailed plan for a horse to come up with.” His breath hitched as Wonwoo slid sideways while yawning again and laid his head down against Junhui’s chest as if he were a pillow. “I’m pretty sure I was right in saying you’re the knight in shining armour,” he babbled on, hoping his continuous speaking would somehow quieten his nerves, or at least distract his brain. “You know, the kind that rides in to save the princess from the ivory tower and marries her at the end of the fairy tale?”

The last time they’d shared a bed they’d both been extremely sleepy from studying, and their arms had barely touched. Now, Wonwoo was curled on top of him, one arm bent to cushion his head, the other wrapped around Junhui’s waist. And Wonwoo might have been sleepy, but Junhui had never been more awake before in his life.

“I’m okay with being a knight,” Wonwoo muttered. “I’m handsome and dashing and heroic.” His eyes fluttered to a close. “But I don't want to save princesses. I’d much rather get married to a prince.”

It was like someone had cranked a dial on Junhui’s cardiovascular system, his heart ticked up to beat so quickly Wonwoo could surely hear and feel it with his ear so close to Junhui’s ribs. At any moment now, it was definitely going to hammer its way right out of Junhui’s chest, or if not then the speed with which it was pumping blood through his body was going to make something explode in him. His brain maybe, or all of his organs. He tried not to squirm or move Wonwoo’s head so as to not disrupt his journey to slumber, but an insistent itch had spread across his skin, settling everywhere and nowhere he could scratch it away.

“Is that weird?” Wonwoo murmured after a few seconds of silence, a few million beats of Junhui’s heart. His mouth couldn’t fully shape the words nor the sounds, and it was clear he was beginning to drift off.

“No,” Junhui said quickly, as reassuring as he could get his voice to be. He took a slow breath in, counting to eight, and then breathed out through his nostrils, again trying to restrict the movement of his ribcage, counting beats of music in his head all the while. Another breath, this time a little deeper but still controlled. Truly, nothing was going according to Junhui’s plans.

Statements like that, those were the kind of thing that gave Junhui false hope. The kind of thing that made it easy to forget that Junhui couldn’t, he just _couldn’t_. Once was unfortunate, twice was a lesson, and three times, three times would be too much. Junhui couldn’t let it get to three times, his heart wasn’t going to mend. Life wasn’t a video game, you didn’t get three lives.

“No, how could that be weird to me? When I expect Jihoon and Soonyoung to get married? When I’d much rather marry a prince too.” Junhui’s voice was a half-dead croak through his ragged breathing. He was grateful for Wonwoo’s answering snores, even though they didn’t change his feelings, nor the fact that his heart rate was completely out of control.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“Truth!”

They were sitting in a sort of square near the foot of Jihoon’s bed. Despite the fact that Jihoon always insisted they not treat his room as a lounge or common area, it was still where his friends flocked to. There was something magnetic about his prickly personality, and at least part of it had to do with the smug satisfaction Jihoon seemed to radiate whenever it was clear that he was at the centre of things pulling everyone in.

Tonight it was just the four of them who were about to graduate soon, and in Junhui’s head he’d been trying to come up with a nickname for them. D'Artagnan and the three musketeers, featuring four boys born in 96 and all of them at least mostly more into boys rather than girls. Junhui hadn’t learned the Korean word for when you liked someone who was the same sex as you, but he did know the words for fate and friendship, and there was something about it that made him feel like they were meant to meet. That might have just been his senior year nostalgia kicking in.

Similarly, all four of them should really have been studying for the college scholastic aptitude tests coming up, but Soonyoung had whined loudly enough about studying that Jihoon had finally broken down, and suggested that a break might be good for all of them. There was also a looming sense that because they were graduating soon, they had to use up their time as high schoolers well, because there might not be time left to have fun when they were adults.

Soonyoung was the one who asked the first round. “Alright Wonwoo-goon, standard question then. Do you like someone?”

Junhui nearly jumped out of his skin at the question. They were really going for it, huh? The kind of giddy high school stuff that was meant to be a de-stressor might give him high blood pressure at this rate. He tried not to stare openly at Wonwoo while waiting for his answer, tried to dampen down his curiosity and interest. _No no no, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t_ , had become his silent mantra.

Jihoon had somehow managed to take off his own shoe without Junhui noticing and was hitting Soonyoung over the head with it. “Why are you stupid?! Have you never played this game before? Why would you ask something so specific, of all the things you could have said, maybe _who_ do you have a crush on…Whether or not that person exists doesn’t tell us anything, you fucking dumbass!”

Privately, Junhui was pretty grateful. He wasn’t sure he could handle the news if it turned out that Wonwoo liked some cute junior or freshmen, or even a graduated senior. And if it was someone in their own year, he’d probably be irrationally angry with them for the rest of the semester, which would have been completely unfair.

“You’re so mean,” Soonyoung whined, “You’re dating this ‘dumbass’ so don’t hit me so much! My brain cells are precious.” He stuck out his lower lip and jutted out his chin at Jihoon, who covered his face with one hand and sighed.

“God only knows why.” His words were belied by the slight lift to the corner of his mouth, and the rest of them knew it.

Soonyoung brightened when he saw and turned away with a sly smirk. “Anyway! Wonwoo hasn’t answered yet!”

Wonwoo lifted up a hand and smoothed out his bangs to the side. “Yeah,” he said coolly, looking up at his fingers instead of at the others, and flipping his head to adjust his hair once more. “I do.”

“Ooo!” Soonyoung was like a tiger, eager and pouncing on his prey. “Who? Who do you have a crush on, who is it? Who is it? Is it someone we know?” Soonyoung leaned forward on his knees, lifting himself slightly up and out of his cross-legged position to support his weight on his hands. His cheeks were round as he smiled eagerly, but Wonwoo stayed silent.

Even without him speaking a word, Junhui still knew the answer. He could read it from Wonwoo’s body language, the rocking of his wrist to adjust his watch, knee twitching very slightly up and down. His blinking was more pronounced, like he had to consciously think about the way he was holding his face, mouth slightly ajar and tongue poking into the inside of his cheek. It screamed ‘ _yes_ ’ in the same tone as Wonwoo’s voice, and Junhui’s internal monologue screamed, ‘ _no, why?_ ’ at him.

In conjunction with the information he’d learned yesterday, Junhui’s brain was sent into overdrive. Was it someone they knew in the sense that it was just a classmate? Had Wonwoo been looking particularly attentively at anyone recently? Now that he had to answer that question, all of his recollections of the past few weeks became hazy and he couldn’t remember whether he’d been paying special attention to anyone else at all. Or maybe that wasn’t his head speaking but his heart, because he certainly didn’t _want_ Wonwoo to be paying attention to anyone else.

“It’s one question, you asked it, I answered it, now we move on,” Wonwoo said quickly.

Junhui couldn’t decide if that was a good or a bad response. On one hand, he was dying to know who Wonwoo was interested in, on the other, it wasn’t like his heart problems were going away anytime soon. Whether or not he knew the identity of the individual didn’t matter, it certainly held Junhui’s feelings in check, a little bit. He hoped whoever it was, that he’d make Wonwoo happy.

“So Jihoon, your turn. Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Jihoon said casually. He tossed back his head so his bangs slid away from his eyes, and he stared challengingly into Wonwoo’s eyes.

“Sure. Tell us the truth, you’re going to propose to Soonyoung as soon as you two graduate right?” Wonwoo smirked.

“Of course,” Jihoon replied easily, splaying out his fingers with dispassion. “Got the ring picked out and everything.”

Three voices rang out at once.

“You can’t just say things like that—”

“—This is truth or dare you’re supposed to tell the truth—”

“—Jihoonie?!”

Jihoon’s face slid into a Cheshire grin and he nodded his head. “The _key_ ring, you fucking dumbshit, I was going to ask if you wanted to move in together if we end up in the same city for university.”

“Jihoonie!!” Soonyoung slid into Jihoon’s lap, arms tangled around his neck and his face buried in Jihoon’s hair.

“Get the fuck off me or I’m going to confine you to a broom closet! There are other people here! I have a reputation!” Jihoon swatted at him, making choking noises like he was actually being hurt, and pointed a finger at Junhui.

“Yeah, a reputation for being a softie,” Wonwoo said with a snort.

Soonyoung eventually scooted back, sitting with his legs crossed and a smile plastered to his face.

“Truth or dare, Junhui?”

“It seems like a night of truths…so I’ll go with that too.”

“You can always try breaking the mold you know,” Jihoon replied, before humming as he tried to come up with a question.

“I have one, if you’re still thinking,” Soonyoung offered.

Jihoon waved his hand, letting him go ahead.

“So you know, before you two had your little lovers’ spat—”

Jihoon cackled, slapping his sleeved palms together so they made dull clapping noises. That was much better than anything he could have come up with, he was glad for Soonyoung sometimes. Not that he admitted that often.

“What’s a lovers’ spat?” Junhui asked, while Wonwoo frowned and muttered, “What are you talking about, Soonyoung? It wasn’t a lovers’ spat.”

“Semantics. Anyway, before your little hullaballoo—”

“What’s a hullaballoo?” Junhui was still confused by the words that were being thrown around.

Wonwoo patted Junhu’s shoulder. “A word no one uses anymore, but just let him finish, I don’t think I want to know what the next word he tries to use is.”

“As I was saying! Junhui-ya, you willingly talked about Jeonghan-hyung for the first time in ballet class! Well, the first time in like, I don’t know, a long time.”

Jihoon’s hands flew out in front of him, one landing on Soonyoung’s knee, the other landing on Junhui’s.

“What I wanna know is what really went down between you two that turned you into a mess for weeks.”

“We’re playing a game of truth or dare, not spill our fucking hearts out in front of everyone,” Jihoon said with a roll of his eyes. He dug his fingernails into the skin exposed by the ripped patch of Soonyoung’s jeans before patting Junhui. “Forget he asked that. You don’t have to talk about it.”

“Ehhh, Jihoonie, for someone who’s always so mean you’re actually really soft-hearted! Don’t be like that, I’ve been dying to know for ages.”

“It’s fine, it’s stupid, but it’s fine if you really want to hear it,” Junhui said slowly, toying with the elastic band around his wrist. He could feel all three of them scrutinizing him without trying to be obvious about it, but for some reason, that made all the focus on him more daunting.

“Here, why don’t we say what we do know so you can just fill in the blanks and not have to know where to start?” Jihoon said gently. “So Jeonghan-hyung was your student buddy, meant to help introduce you to the school and Korean culture since you were new, and you two had to spend time together.”

Soonyoung piped in with, “At first there was the language barrier but slowly you warmed up to each other, and both of you having long hair certainly helped. And then it was a little more than that. You were happy, he was happy. Everyone thought you were going to date officially. But?”

The story took Junhui back a little, to when he was younger, more naïve maybe. It was a time before he and Wonwoo had ever spoken, and for some reason it was that fact that made it seem like it was a lifetime ago, rather than something that happened less than two years prior.

“But I said no.”

“What?” Soonyoung shot him a look, one eyebrow raised.

“So he really was Icarus…” Jihoon muttered.

“Well, I didn’t say the word ‘no’. I told him I wasn’t ready to…” He shook his head.

“To label yourselves as ‘boyfriends’? I mean, you guys basically went on dates every weekend, you did each other’s hair, and spent more time hugging each other than not.”

Junhui shrunk a little at Soonyoung’s words. “I just wasn’t…”

“It’s fine,” Wonwoo interrupted. “You don’t need to explain yourself. Whatever you felt was whatever you felt, and just because other people thought you should feel differently doesn’t mean anything.”

“Wonwoo-goon, you weren’t there, you didn’t see—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said sharply, “I didn’t need to be there to know that that’s not how emotions or relationships work. Just let Junhui continue so we can get this over with.”

Was Wonwoo annoyed by this story? Junhui hadn’t meant to bore him with details of his weirdly affecting past. He swallowed and wrapped his arms around his knees. “Jeonghan-hyung didn’t take that very well, even though I hadn’t really said no.”

“I didn’t get the sense that Yoon Jeonghan had ever been remotely rejected for any reason in his entire life,” Jihoon said. “Not just in terms of relationships. I think he was the type of person that never failed anything, never lost a game of anything, never had someone tell him no. He seemed like the kind of guy who always got what he wanted, you know? I’m not surprised that he took something that wasn’t a definite yes as an affront to his existence.”

“I don’t know if I ever really liked Jeonghan-hyung,” Junhui said suddenly.

“I’m sorry? Did I just hear that properly?” Soonyoung asked, mouth agape. “You didn’t really like Jeonghan-hyung?”

“It’s just, Jihoon said that he always got what he wanted right? But part of that was that he also knew what he wanted. And the possibility that he wanted _me_ was probably the most comforting and welcome thing someone could give me when I was new to the country. I think I liked the idea of him, of being included and accepted by someone maybe more than I actually liked him.”

Junhui looked up from his toes and saw everyone else with their faces in varying degrees of thought. Wonwoo’s face was turned towards the ground, so Junhui couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but Jihoon looked like he had just found the answer to the universe and Soonyoung had that look like when he finally came to terms with the fact that he was never going to solve a particularly difficult math equation.

“I think maybe that’s why I was such a mess afterward too. I didn’t think…I mean, I thought if I asked him for some time, we could still be friends afterward. But he told me, ‘No, Junhui, I think it’s best if we don’t see each other anymore.’ And he meant at all. Not talking, not meeting up for lunch in the caf either. So that little place I had found for myself disappeared entirely and it was almost as bad as when—” He stopped abruptly and took a quick breath. “It didn’t leave me in a good frame of mind anyway, and it made me terrified to so much as think of Jeonghan-hyung for about a year.”

“I wish you had told us this earlier,” Jihoon said, looking up and blinking quickly. “Instead of letting us wonder what the hell had happened, and making us think we should leave you the fuck alone when in reality we should have been shoving all that lovey dovey friendship shit down your throat as much as possible.”

Soonyoung laughed lightly. “Really, you did have us,” he said kindly. “You still have us. And now you’ve got Wonwoo-goon too. You have a place in Korea, Junhui, it’s right here with us.”

Wonwoo looked up, finally, and he nodded. The smile on his face was tight, with the corners of lips raised upward but the rest of the muscles in his face contracted too tightly for the smile to reach his eyes, in that peculiar why he had of smiling when other people found something funny but he found it uncomfortable. Junhui wondered if he should have skipped over some parts to say his answer faster. Obviously Wonwoo hadn’t wanted to hear all of that gloomy stuff about something that happened when they hadn’t known each other. In his position, Junhui would have been squirming too.

“I know that now!” Junhui said, trying to brighten the mood and dispel the atmosphere that had hung over them because of his terribly morose story. “That’s why I’m here right now, isn’t it?” He barked out a short laugh and pointed his foot toward Soonyoung, moving their game along. “Your turn, Soonyoung, truth or dare?”

Soonyoung smiled, like he was glad to see his friend’s quick rebound, but there were more questions in his eyes that he suppressed for the moment. “Dare! I’m not afraid to be different from the rest of the pack.”

Junhui looked from side to side, eyes asking for help since he didn’t really have any ideas. He normally didn’t have great suggestions for dares in the first place, and at this point, being emotionally drained from all the sharing, he had absolutely nothing at all.

“I’ve got one,” Jihoon said, patting Junhui’s back once. “I dare you to take a picture with your shirt off and put it up on your kakaostory.”

Three quickly blinking pairs of his eyes stared at him, each with a different mix of confusion and amusement.

“I take it back, Lee Jihoon, you’re pure evil. Pure. Evil. Just because you know I don’t have abs?!” Soonyoung shrieked and leapt up.

Wonwoo cracked a genuine laugh as he reached around to stop Soonyoung from running away. Jihoon had a suitably terrifying smirk as he patted Soonyoung down for his phone and maneuvered to hold him down. Junhui watched, quietly breathing out a deep sigh of relief, and tried not to let his mind wander away from the present.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

With the CSAT around the corner, there simply wasn’t enough time for Junhui to deliberate over who it was that could be the potential object of Wonwoo’s affections. Maybe, hypothetically, under the covers late at night and alone with the lights were off and the dorms silent, he could possibly admit to himself what the reason for his curiosity was. If his brain had been awake. But it wasn’t and he mostly forgot about the entire thing, or at the very least put it far back enough in his mind so as to not occupy the space where he was attempting to cram information for the exam.

Most days, he returned to his rooms and nearly instantaneously lost consciousness. It was the only thing his body could do after spending an entire day pouring over his notes in excruciating detail, practicing reading comprehension questions, finishing math exercises, copying out vocabulary and equations until one of he or Wonwoo or Jihoon passed out into their notebooks, the sound of the head thunking against the table signalling the end of the day when the clock had already ticked into the early hours of tomorrow. Jihoon would jab Soonyoung awake with something sharp, a pen or pencil, or even his fingernails, and the four of them would lean against each other and slowly squeeze into their own rooms, collapse into bed, only to do it all again the next morning.

Over the scratching of writing implements on paper, the rubbing tired eyes and willing them to read the same sentence over and over again, words swimming until they barely made sense anymore, and the intermittent sighs, there were very few words shared among them. There was very little of anything at all, in those weeks. Only the bare minimum number of hours of sleep to be functional, food if one of their stomachs rumbled but almost no full-course meals, hardly any dancing, and certainly no conversations more complicated than asking questions about the material they were supposed to know.

Well, he supposed there _was_ one thing thing there was a lot of – Jihoon’s shitty instant coffee. Not that Junhui would ever tell him it was shitty, in case his supply ever got cut off.

But the point, the point was that considering he had forgotten to call his mother and was berated by Feng Jun for being sleepy and dazed during their own conversations, there was no extra thinking power Junhui could dredge up to wonder about Jeon Wonwoo or his crush, especially not when Junhui had been trying so hard to repress his own. He had priorities, and getting into university was certainly one of them. The little WeChat messages from his mother telling him not to worry about calling, to take care of himself, to work hard and get into a good school, those only fuelled him.

Junhui worked harder, but none of their routine shifted, the only change being the vigour with which he attacked what he needed to memorize. The constancy grounded him, made it easier to get out of bed in the morning, to get through workbooks during the day.

Stumbling into Soonyoung in the hallway, hair sticking up in every direction, and resting his chin on his shoulder as they zombied their way to the library was a reminder that he wasn’t alone. He sat and read a passage, wondered why it seemed familiar, and then remembered that he had seen something related three days ago around the same time Jihoon had slammed back an entire packet of wasabi peas as a way to forcefully make himself more alert, and suddenly the name of the book to reference popped into Junhui’s head as vibrant and nausea-inducing as the neon green of Jihoon’s snack. Being in the same lighting, with the same people, day in and day out, it was settling.

That was why the change in plans disconcerted him so much.

The calendar on their floor had read D-8 in block red lettering when he past it in the morning, which meant they only had a week left since it was now after midnight. After Junhui’s head bobbed back up from accidentally dozing, he stood quickly, his chair scraping the floor. There was almost no one around to be disturbed by the noise save for the two other seniors who were always in before they were and out after. He privately wondered if they slept on the tables once everyone was gone.

“You guys go ahead, I have to make sure I can finish all the questions for this chem unit or I’ll fall behind my study plans,” Wonwoo said, voice low.

Jihoon stopped in the middle of packing up his things to stare at him, blinking quickly with his eyebrows high and hidden by his bangs. Wonwoo stared back unflinchingly, and uncharacteristically, Jihoon was the one to look away first, shrugging his shoulders and giving Soonyoung an extra kick to the shins. Junhui rather thought it was nice of Soonyoung to stick around for the emotional support, even if mostly he just slept instead of studying. It made him want to sit back down.

“Are you coming?” Jihoon asked behind him, hands pressed against Soonyoung’s shoulder blades to push him in the direction of the door. Junhui shook his head and tucked his chair back in, spreading his notes back out in front of him. Jihoon raised a second eyebrow but left without any verbal protest.

Junhui slid the elastic out of his hair and re-brushed all of it back, replacing the loosening ponytail with one tight to his scalp. It was long enough that it needed to be put into a bun now, lest he whip himself in the face every time he did a pirouette. Soohee had cackled at him for a good five minutes when he had asked to borrow bobby pins from her, and Mingyu had laughed even harder when he found out that Junhui had no idea where to start with making a bun, although he had eventually shown Junhui how to tie it up with nimble fingers.

For a moment, at least, the pull at the back of his head was enough to keep Junhui’s attention on the electromagnetism rules he was practicing applications for, but he ended up dozing off again, perhaps unsurprisingly since he had already fallen asleep once that night.

When he woke up again, the library really was empty save for the two of them. Apparently the people in the corner _did_ need sleep. Junhui rubbed his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time that day before raising his arms and stretching out the kink that had developed in the back of his neck.

“How long was I out?” Junhui asked. Probably not a question he would get answered, considering how intensely concentrated Wonwoo was on the pages in front of him.

But he looked up, glanced at the clock on the wall, and turned his gaze to Junhui. “Not that long. I’m nearly done, we should go.”

Junhui nodded. “Yes, sleep is a thing that people do, don’t know if you’ve heard of it.”

“Not smart people, surely,” Wonwoo said wryly. “Someone I trust once informed me that babies sleep a lot, and they’re not all that smart.”

Junhui laughed with his mouth open and his eyes closed, thrown back into his memories. He opened his eyes again to see Wonwoo still looking at him, the focus intense enough that Junhui felt thrown back a little in his seat. The smile he was giving was soft and warm, and on cue, the familiar set of responses bloomed in his body – swirling deep in his stomach, pounding heart, dry mouth. He had forgotten this feeling, but it hadn’t taken much to remind him. That smile was everything. Wonwoo kept up a cold, aloof, maybe even passive façade so often for strangers, scaring people away before they got close. But if you got past that, if you were as close to him as Junhui felt confident he could now say he was, Wonwoo reserved the most radiant smile in the world.

Junhui realized, without a doubt, that he never wanted to share Wonwoo’s smile with anyone else. He wanted that smile given to him, and him alone.

But he _couldn’t_.

It didn’t matter whether or not Junhui wanted to see that smile every day. It didn’t even matter whether or not Wonwoo was willing to smile at him like that once in a while. It wasn’t about Junhui or Wonwoo or Junhui and Wonwoo.

It was just…

It was just the smell of ozone mixed in with the smell of old books left on dusty shelves.

It was just that scent left behind by a streak of lightning across the sky and remained in the air, that lingered with Junhui even after they left the library, that lingered after they had returned to the dormitories.

“You don’t have to stay you know. I mean, it’s not comfortable sleeping on the tables, and it’s not like I need someone else there to study,” Wonwoo told him, voice subdued. If his thoughts weren’t about Wonwoo, Junhui would have asked him for help untangling the jumbled up web.

“Or you could consider leaving with the rest of us to go to bed like we’ve been doing for the past two weeks,” Junhui shot back.

Wonwoo paused in his steps, and Junhui, walking a little behind him, could tell he had a pained expression even if he couldn’t see it. “I have to know everything. This is it. This is the week that makes or breaks the rest of my life. I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t do my very best.”

“It’ll all mean shit if your body physically collapses.” Junhui didn’t mean for it to sound harsh, but he supposed he was too tired to keep the sting out of his words.

Wonwoo’s expression had probably soured even more at that, although he started walking again. “I’m not going to crumble under pressure,” he bit out.

“That’s not what I meant,” Junhui mumbled, leaning forward to press his face into the fabric of Wonwoo’s hood, too exhausted to hold up his head. It was a very nice sweater, warm and soft and fitted to Wonwoo’s torso.

“I can take care of myself,” Wonwoo says, reaching back to pull Junhui around from behind him to beside him, letting his head rest at the junction between his neck and shoulder. Junhui made a quiet indecipherable noise and snuggled in closer. “I’m the one trying to be the doctor, remember?” He dug his knuckles into the side of Junhui’s head, mussing his hair, before suddenly changing gears and combing it all back down and smoothing the ends.

“Not trying. Going. You’re _going_ to be a doctor.” Junhui’s voice was oddly firm for someone who was shuffling instead of walking, swaying a little as he tried to move. The sleep deprivation was taking a toll on him, even if it didn’t seem to be taking a toll on Wonwoo.

He didn’t get a reply until they had nearly reached his room. “Junhui-ya,” Wonwoo said, voice sharp and cutting in the silence of the hallway. Junhui turned to look at him, and he immediately took back that thought. The lack of sleep was definitely taking a toll on Wonwoo; his face looked haggard and sunken, skin sallow with spots dotting his jaw and dark circles a mile long beneath his eyes. It worried Junhui, even as he thought he was looking at the most beautiful person in the world, even as he wanted to press kisses to each of the angry looking red marks. He wouldn’t, could never.

There was a squeeze to his hand. He hadn’t noticed Wonwoo clasping their fingers together with how enraptured he was with scrutinizing his face.

“Thank you, as always, Wen Junhui.”

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“How did it go?”

“It went.”

That was the only answer Junhui had for anyone. His mom hadn’t pressed although she definitely looked like she wanted to, and he was grateful for that. Part of him felt bad for having so little to say to her when he’d been radio silent for weeks, but what he really needed to be able to speak to her more was sleep, not a longer video call.

As a graduating class, they received the pre-calculation of their grades based on what they remembered of their answers almost as soon as it ended. Junhui thought he did well, but he was too scared to have faith in unofficial results. It was easier to dump everything that he had shoved into his mind out into a garbage bag and wait for the month-long turn around time without spending too much time or effort wondering if he could have done better. What happened had already happened, and he wasn’t going to be able to change any of it without a time machine, so he figured he’d move on.

He saw Jihoon coming out of his room two mornings later, looking like he’d gone through a day long pub crawl and ended up with the worst hangover in the universe. In some respects, that was exactly what the experience was like.

“Not. A. Word.” Jihoon growled when he had opened his eyes enough to spot Junhui, and nodded with satisfaction when Junhui mimed zipping his lips.

That was fine by him. He’d be okay if they never talked about it, really. Jihoon squeezed his eyes shut again and blindly wandered off, probably in search of Soonyoung or coffee, both of them his life force.

In the cafeteria, Minghao took one look at him and dug into his bag for a bar of chocolate, not saying a word. Junhui did know some smart people, really.

It was over his morning rice porridge, savoury and warm, delicious and perfect for the rapidly sliding temperatures, that Junhui felt like he had properly recovered from what felt like a long war. November was halfway over already, he realized with a start, which meant that it was sooner instead of later that he’d be leaving this place, the school where he’d recovered a semblance of who he was.

He looked up at Minghao’s wide round eyes, the small pleased expression his face from enjoying what he was eating, and suddenly thought he’d miss it.

It had been a long time since he missed anywhere at all.

“I’m graduating, in like, three months,” Junhui said slowly, tracking circles in the bottom of his bowl with his spoon. Saying it made it even more real.

“Yeah, I know, I’ve been saying that for ages.” Minghao made that look he did whenever he was unimpressed by something, and Junhui found it so familiar it was like looking at a blood relative. Maybe that’s what Minghao was, now, family. “If you’re baiting me so you can hear me tell you I’ll miss you or something, you’re looking at the wrong guy. That’s Mingyu’s job.”

“I know. But when I graduate it means I’m _leaving_ ,” Junhui tried again.

“Yes?” Minghao said slowly, “That’s typically what happens when people graduate, they don’t tend to stick around.”

Junhui shook his head. It meant he wouldn’t be seeing the dorms, the classrooms, the studios, not the teachers, nor the students. It meant that this was it, his only time remaining, that he had to grab onto every second like it was an opportunity not to be wasted. Like enjoying time spent with Minghao.

Yet there was so much to do. He still had school exams, although he supposed those seemed tiny and insignificant now that the CSAT was out of the way, there were the dance evaluations left too. It would be a new year before they knew it, and in no time at all they’d go their separate ways. In the interim there was the final performance and even though their choreography had been completed, he and Wonwoo never did work on synchrony or polishing. They still had to decide on what they were going to wear, still had a last meeting with the senior advisor. Speaking of.

“Shit, what day is it?” He had pretty much lost track of time since the exam, which was on a Thursday. They’d gone to classes for the mock-up of the correct responses yesterday, which meant today had to be a Saturday.

“Hyung, I’m scared you’re actually losing it. We just went over this. It’s Saturday. Jieqiong and I are headed off to her pipa audition this afternoon. I asked if you were going to go back to sleep and you said ‘yeah’.”

“Did I?” Junhui had let himself sleep in because he needed to recover, but Saturdays were supposed to be studio days. Anyway, if it was Saturday, why was he eating breakfast with Minghao? Normally he ate breakfast with Wonwoo when there was no one else in the cafeteria because it was too early and the weekend, before they headed up to the studio together. Well, normally he ate meals with Wonwoo period. Where was Wonwoo anyway?

“Okay, I need to get going, but I’m kind of worried about leaving you alone right now. Did you spill out your brain when you were sitting the SAT and then forget to take it with you when you left the exam room?” Minghao furrowed his eyebrows and spun his chopsticks around on his try.

“Haha,” Junhui said, “Don’t worry about my head. Think about your own. Will Jieqiong even let you have a head if you’re late?”

Minghao stood and hesitated before walking. “Just don’t do anything stupider than usual until I can get back to make you get your head checked out. Or sleep for twenty-four hours.”

Junhui waved his hand, watched Minghao leave, and then jumped up himself. He strode out of the cafeteria and taking the stairs two at a time up to 4B as he quickly as he could without breaking in a run. It was empty, and that left Junhui stumped. Wonwoo hadn’t been in the cafeteria, and he surely wouldn’t be in the library so soon after exams. If he wasn’t in the studio, there was no where else Junhui could think of to look. Unless he was still in his room, which seemed unlikely.

Nevertheless, that was where Junhui headed next, and the door opened a few moments after Junhui knocked, revealing a sleepy Wonwoo looking small and miserable wrapped up in a cocoon of blankets. Junhui took in his watery eyes, dry skin around his nose, and vaguely remembered that he had warned Wonwoo something like this would happen.

“Are you sick?” Junhui asked, even though he knew the answer already.

“It’s just a cold,” Wonwoo croaked out nasally. The graininess of his voice tugged at Junhui’s heart.

Wonwoo waddled back to his bed with his blankets without closing the door, and Junhui took that as a sign he was allowed to enter. He watched as Wonwoo, still rolled up, slipped under another even thicker blanket. Junhui sighed and clucked his tongue. There wasn’t a point in berating him when he was sick, Wonwoo probably felt terrible enough as it was, but all of the not-eating, not-sleeping, combined with the stress and being cooped up indoors for ages was a recipe for illness. Wonwoo knew that anyway.

Instead of telling him something along the lines of ‘I told you so,’ Junhui settled on saying, “Have you eaten?” That, at least, was a safe enough question.

There was a shift in the covers and Wonwoo shook his head in the negative. To his left was a bottle of cough syrup sitting on the bedside table. The freshly ripped seal was still lying on the desk as well, and the fact that Wonwoo had gone through about a third of the bottle with an empty bottle made Junhui purse his lips.

“I’ll be right back.”

“Maybe you should stay away,” Wonwoo called out after him. “I’m at my most contagious.”

Junhui silently scoffed at Minghao worrying about him doing stupid things. Junhui didn’t have time to do anything stupid when Wonwoo was the one being stupid.

He returned with his kit of Chinese cold medication under his arm, as well as a brown paper bag with two thermoses. The first contained soup that the cafeteria cooks were eager to hand over as soon as Junhui had said the magic words “Jeon Wonwoo, third year student”, and another of ginseng root tea, prepped from the stock Jihoon stored when he received packages from his dad. Junhui set everything down on the small table beside Wonwoo’s bed before wheeling over his desk chair and rolling up his sleeves.

“You probably don’t have your usually massive appetite right now, but you have to eat something,” Junhui coaxed gently.

With eyes closed in resignation, Wonwoo nodded weakly and pulled himself mostly upright, struggling to remove his hands from the blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders.

“It’s fine,” Junhui murmured, placing a hand on Wonwoo’s back to stop him. He fished out a metal spoon from the paper bag and lifted out the soup thermos carefully. The soup was hot, chock full of protein and vitamins, and it would fuel Wonwoo’s recovery.

Wonwoo was easy to feed, not anything like trying to get Junhui’s little brother to eat his meals. Junhui blew on the soup to cool it while Wonwoo chewed chunks of radish or small pieces of beef. As soon as Wonwoo looked ready for the next bite, eyes narrowing down on the spoon, Junhui lifted it up to his mouth and was careful not to get anything elsewhere on his face. It was slow but steady, and it gave Junhui something rhythmic to focus on.

When Wonwoo was done eating, Junhui wiped around the edges of Wonwoo’s lips with the pad of his thumb before sticking his thumb in his own mouth to lick it clean.

Wonwoo tracked the movement of Junhui’s hand with his eyes. “To be fair, I have my own hands,” he said when Junhui started packing things up. He gave a small sniffle and Junhui pressed a napkin to his face.

“But you didn’t use them. Look who’s the knight in shining armour now,” Junhui joked, turning away to dispose of the tissue and put away what needed to be organized. “I think I’d look better riding a white horse than you would.”

Wonwoo made a sound in the back of his throat and opened his mouth. Junhui shoved his index finger over Wonwoo’s lips, shushing him.

“Don’t argue with me, your throat probably can’t take it. Maybe you should try to sleep this off.” He laughed at Wonwoo’s pout and got ready to tuck him back under the covers, thinking he could probably stick around and nap himself so he’d still be there to force-feed Wonwoo some of the tea when he woke up.

As he returned to the spot beside the bed, Wonwoo looked up at Junhui, his eyes bright and shiny. “Does this story have to have any knights in it at all?” Wonwoo asked, voice surprisingly strong, even if distorted by his stuffy sinuses. That was a weird question. It was probably from the cold, Junhui should have taken his temperature to check for a fever.

“What?” Junhui asked. He returned Wonwoo’s shiny-eyed look with one of confusion. Maybe it wasn’t a fever, but the excessive cough syrup had made him loopy.

“What if we were both princes?”

Junhui’s jaw lowered, and his heart rate climbed. He could still remember the feeling of Wonwoo’s head pillowed against his chest, arm wrapped around his torso, Wonwoo’s presence dulling the ache in his back.

But Wonwoo had been sleeping during that conversation. Junhui had been so certain that the other hadn’t heard his reply, so certain that Wonwoo was asleep, so certain of the answering snores.

If he had heard what Junhui said, then the direction of the conversation was headed into un-mappable territory. Maybe he meant something else. Junhui searched desperately for something to say to turn it back onto a path he felt comfortable navigating. “It’s one thing to call yourself a handsome knight, but to be so vain as to call yourself a prince—”

“—I’m serious Junhui-ya, and I know you know what I’m talking about. I like you.” Wonwoo never gave an inch when he set his mind on something, and Junhui shouldn’t have been surprised at that. Junhui swallowed with great difficulty, his tongue too heavy and dry to move. “A lot.” It got worse.

 _You can’t_ , Junhui thought vehemently, _this isn’t happening_.

“I kept throwing down hints that I knew you were picking up on. You do that thing where you blink and look down but your posture gets all stiff.” Wonwoo shrugged out of his nest of blankets, emerging like a butterfly from a chrysalis, still sick but also so sure of himself. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask me who my crush was after that time in Jihoon’s room, but you never did. I practiced my confession for weeks,” Wonwoo declared brightly, almost proudly. “But you never asked and I never got to use it on you.” Junhui had been jealous of some imaginary guy who was supposed to make Wonwoo happy. That was the narrative. The crush wasn’t supposed to be on him.

Junhui could feel his heart thumping fast and strong, blood coursing through his arteries and veins and leaving him pink-tinged and overly heated. His entire stomach seemed to have not only dropped out from his body, but entirely vanished.

“Normally, when someone confesses to you, you’re supposed to respond,” Wonwoo prompted lightly.

“I’m special, remember?” That response was kneejerk now, but Junhui wasn’t sure it was the appropriate thing to say. He blinked, not really seeing what was in front of his eyes, mind blanking out. His head felt light, like it needed to be checked out, just as Minghao had said.

“You _are_ special.” Wonwoo turned his head away, voice cracking and dissolving into a coughing fit. Which reminded Junhui, maybe it was the cough syrup talking still. There was just no way. No way. Either Wonwoo was tired or _something_. There was no way he knew what he was saying.

“So?” Wonwoo prompted again. “Am I going to have to spell it out?” His voice got smaller, quieter. Shy. And low and resonating in Junhui’s chest. “Do you like me?”

“Yes.” That reply, too, was automatic. But it was such an understatement it sounded like a lie to Junhui’s ears. The words ‘yes, I like you,’ failed to encompass even a quarter of what Junhui felt about Wonwoo.

Of course Junhui’s mouth could instinctively form the words of those reflexive responses, but not obey him in trying to convey what he actually wanted to say.

How could he say any of it aloud anyway? Yes, I like you so much I dream of you and it makes waking up in the morning unbearable. Yes, just seeing your smile fills me with happiness and butterflies. Yes, I’m so attracted to you I’m not entirely sure how to be functional. Yes, how could I not like you when you’re funny and smart and always so kind, when you’re the best person I’ve ever met.

Things were easier when Junhui still thought that his feelings were one-sided.

When his _couldn’t_ also equaled to _wouldn’t_.

Junhui hadn’t had to worry about anything at all. But if – just if – it wasn’t the cough syrup or the cold or the tiredness, if somehow Wonwoo was telling the truth then that delicate equilibrium Junhui had created for their friendship wasn’t quite as balanced as he had believed, and the entire equation threatened to crumble.

It was possible that the _couldn’t_ might turn into a _could_ , and that might also be the worst thing possible to ever happen to him.

“I had hoped,” Wonwoo said. He wiggled forward, reaching out a long, lanky arm, and wrapped a firm hand around the end of Junhui’s thigh, just above his knee, dragging him forward. He scooted the rest of himself to the edge of the bed, sitting on his knees. “Can I kiss you now? I know I’m sick but I think it might be too late for you to complain about germs.” His voice was delicate, and he phrased it as a question, but the confidence in his voice only made him more alluring.

“ _Yes_ ,” Junhui hissed. No. _No_. Wait a minute.

None of his internal debate reached Wonwoo’s ears, of course, and so Wonwoo leaned forward, weight on his hands, to press his lips against Junhui’s cheek.

Junhui’s entire body responded to that without input from his brain, curling forward as the aftershocks down Junhui’s spine continued to reverberate even after Wonwoo had moved back in order to press a kiss to the other side of Junhui’s face. At the last moment, Junhui turned his head so their lips could meet.

There was a shift in weight as Wonwoo reacted in surprise, but he adjusted quickly, kissing Junhui back with a soft sound of contentment. The hand that wasn’t above Junhui’s knee came to rest with fingers just below Junhui’s ear. Wonwoo’s palm cupped Junhui’s jaw like it was holding glass, steady but gentle.

Junhui was probably going to catch whatever bug Wonwoo had come down with like this, but for a brief period of time, that didn’t matter a single iota. The instant their mouths touched, a little lightning bolt had zipped through Junhui’s entire body, stirring something deep within him.

He had kissed people before. He knew that kissing was nice, could feel pretty great. But Junhui had never kissed someone, or done anything really, that had led to the feeling he felt in that moment. Warmth flooded through him, his heart skipped as many beats as it dared, and the remnants of his brain melted. Kissing Wonwoo, Junhui decided, was the best feeling on earth, and he had somehow been granted this singly extraordinary blessing. Kissing Wonwoo made all the negative energy Junhui built up over school fade. Kissing Wonwoo wasn’t just nice, it was thrilling and calming, satisfying and not enough, being made whole and being completely undone.

Wonwoo’s lips were so soft, even if a little dry, and they were electric everywhere they touched Junhui. They were the end of the world, or the beginning of it, and Junhui frankly didn’t care which. But they were also, well, they were really not supposed to be on his.

Because they couldn’t stay there forever. Junhui had said enough goodbyes in his life, saying goodbye to someone like Wonwoo would be hard enough without the kissing part.

He tore himself away, his face a mixture of horror and arousal. “I-I _can’t_ , Wonwoo, I just…I can’t.”

Junhui ran.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

Wonwoo recovered from his cold well enough by the Wednesday. Junhui knew that because he had put his hand up in class twice, spoken without too much raspiness in his voice, and only had one coughing fit. In calculus, Wonwoo had tried to catch Junhui’s eye no fewer than twenty-three times, craning his neck at every opportunity. Junhui knew all of this because he watched him the entire time while studiously pretending to be staring out the window, eyes really on Wonwoo’s reflection in the pane of glass.

They hadn’t spoken since Saturday.

Junhui had, for all intents and purposes, turned himself into a ghost. He was good at that from experience, knowing how to hide himself and disappear. The Haeun-sunbaenim fiasco wasn’t the first time he’d needed to make himself as small as possible, after all. It wasn’t exactly what he had in mind for his last few months of high school, but desperate times called for extreme acting skills.

Dropping Jeon Wonwoo from Junhui’s life was not like dropping a pencil in the middle of a lesson or dropping an eating utensil onto the lunch tray. It was more like extracting all four of your wisdom teeth out at once, clawing away at the gums in order to crack apart the enamel and yank everything away by the root, and doing so without anesthesia. For days afterward there was pain and swelling and a general inability to eat or speak.

Trying to dispel a relationship with the person he was probably closest to out of the seven billion others on the planet wasn’t an easy task, but Junhui had experience with that sort of thing, the losing your best friend and moving on with a wide gaping hole in your chest thing.

Things would be okay. Sure, they would be awful, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t also be okay.

Junhui spent most of Sunday lying in bed, staring up at his ceiling and trying hard not to think about the feeling of Wonwoo’s lips sliding against his or the way his heart sang or how amazing his life had felt in those few minutes.

Instead he wondered if someone else was taking care of Wonwoo while he was sick. He had hoped Mingyu would. Mingyu was, at his core, a good person. He also would probably be fuming at Junhui right about now for being a shitty friend to someone whose pillars of human interaction consisted of two people total. That wasn’t a good train of thought.

Junhui couldn’t just lie there forever though. At the very least, he had to go to class. And for the first little while, going to class was torture.

Wonwoo was convinced that whatever caused Junhui to bolt out of his room was a problem they could fix, and he was determined about approaching him to something, talk it out maybe. Not re-live that week where they hadn’t talked to each other and each had a personal meltdown.

On that part they could agree. Junhui didn’t want them to be separated for a week, he needed them to be apart permanently. Forever.

On Monday Wonwoo waved at him when he entered the classroom, and Junhui had carefully kept his eyes on the floor, pretending not to see him. He was the first to leave at the end of their lessons, taking the long way to the studios so he could slip in last. At lunch he grabbed a triangle rice ball from the school store and ate alone in a deserted stairwell behind the theatre classrooms, and didn’t linger with the ring of the final bell. There were sixteen text messages left unread on his phone when he glanced at it before falling asleep.

On Tuesday Junhui was at his weakest, and he wasn’t careful enough to avoid walking straight past Wonwoo down a fourth floor hallway, but Junhui was resolute as he brushed past him, ignoring the “Junhui, wait—” and narrowly dodging the hand reaching for his wrist. That was when Wonwoo started getting the picture. Junhui hadn’t opened any of his texts, but one of them was short enough that the alert let him read the single word: _why_. Junhui turned off his notifications.

On Wednesday there were the twenty-three glances, and then there was Wonwoo showing up at his door mere seconds after Junhui had locked himself away into his room, pounding the side of his fist against it and pleading with Junhui to let him in with an increasing shaky tone. “Just let me apologize. Please. I don’t want to lose our friendship over something like this.” Junhui hadn’t had the heart to block out what he had to say with headphones, he figured he’d deserved the way each of Wonwoo’s words stabbed into his heart. “Just say something to me to help me understand.”

On Thursday the glances had diminished to maybe two long looks, miserable and vacant, and Wonwoo hadn’t even given him a hopeful smile in repertoire class, instead proactively choosing a different partner so Junhui couldn’t shoot him down. That was, admittedly, a tough one to swallow. Theoretically, it should have made things easier. Since seeing Wonwoo wasn’t a problem, rather, it was seeing Wonwoo’s crushed expression when Junhui fastidiously ignored him that landed him a blow to the chest every time. So the fact that Wonwoo had slowly stopped trying, that was a reprieve, really. Or at least that’s what it should have been, and not a renewed ache.

By the time Saturday rolled around, the sense of finality was nearly complete.

Saturday was rehearsal day, that fact hadn't changed. Junhui woke, put on the coffeemaker, washed his face, trudged up to the studios, all with a persistent tremor of his hands. That was probably the tiredness, maybe the lack of breakfast. It definitely wasn't anxiousness. Who was he trying to fool, Junhui was wrecked with nerves because had no idea what he was expecting. Keeping his distance when they were dance partners was going to be the hardest thing he'd ever done, and he'd survived the college entrance exams. The only thing he knew for certain was that their situation, it wasn't something that could be fixed by apologies now, and it wasn't something where they had mutually shared visions of the future.

But that was fine. They had been in this boat before. Back before Junhui had started putting in effort into their partnership, before their group project started sailing smoothly, back when Wonwoo was just a guy with a really deep voice that he vaguely knew who was really good at dancing, and who he'd been forced to work with. Just a guy, that was all.

Wonwoo was sitting near the back wall, legs pulled into a horizontal straddle across the floor, not quite 180 degrees but not far from it either, body leaned forward so his elbows were pressed to the ground, a book in between them. With his chin rested on the palms of his hands as he read leisurely, Junhui couldn't quite make out his face which was covered by his bangs.

Junhui took a deep breath, closed his eyes as he lowered his hand until he heard the click of the doorframe, and stepped inside the room. Wonwoo didn't look up right away, eyes wandering to the end of the page before slowly sliding diagonally to the corner of the room, gaze dragging across the wall as if pulled on a heavy chain, and finally landing on Junhui, who suddenly felt very tired. They looked at each other for a moment, and Wonwoo opened his mouth, about to say something. Junhui immediately wished to look away, but there was something holding him there, probably Wonwoo's natural magnetism. But then Wonwoo closed his mouth, thinking better of it, and Junhui's bag fell at his feet, diverting both their attentions toward the sound of it thumping against the floor.

“I'll just start my warm-ups,” Junhui mumbled, so quietly it didn't even reach his own ears. He wasn't sure he even mouthed the right syllables, but it was what he wanted to say in his head, at any rate, and he worked quickly to remove his coat and sweater, moved fast to change his shoes. There wasn't any rustling of pages, only a dull thud as Wonwoo closed his book, a slightly squeaky noise as his canvas shoes slid against the floor so he could roll out of his middle splits.

Junhui started to walk toward him, and Wonwoo watched, standing, looking like he wasn't sure what to do with himself. Like he was unsure of his place in the world, not when he didn't have control of the situation. Wonwoo’s expression and lack of clarity on what to do with his limbs was one that didn't belong on the most quietly confident and self-assured person Junhui knew.

If he kept walking in a straight line, he could face him, toe to toe, kiss that look right off Wonwoo's face.

But that wasn't Junhui's place in the world, of that he was desperate to make true, even if he now knew that kissing Wonwoo was world-shatteringly intense and made him feel as if he could fly and a kaleidoscope of other emotions. Junhui forced his eyes to focus off to the side on the speaker system controls at the back of the room. His feet took him past Wonwoo and his wide eyes and flat line lips. Their shoulders would have brushed if Junhui had been wearing an extra layer, but his arms were bare and that millimetre difference was all it took to walk straight by.

He slipped his phone out of his pocket, hooked it up, and pressed play.

For the first few chords, Wonwoo remained still. Only at the entrance of the cello did his feet carry him forward to the correct spot on the studio floor, right arm twisting over his head and leg sliding out in the opposite direction, body cambréd to the same side, his head twisting to follow the movement of his hand on autopilot.

Junhui had always believed that something that made their choreography stand out was the amount of variation and counterbalancing movements with sounds, mirroring poses, by themselves and between each other. There was musicality that involved following the beat, and then there was being able to operate within the confines of rhythm, because slow music didn't mean you could only have slow motions, and fast notes didn't always dictate quick feet, even if it dictated the overarching pace of the choreography. There was richness to be found in other ways, and they used the complexity of their learned repertoire to speak for itself without forcing any particular elements or feelings.

One of those ways was in fulfilling each and every movement to its maximum, and given all of them their due time to shine, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. It didn't matter if it was a change in level or a more detailed transition, whether it was just a look with the eyes, the specific angle of the head, or the ends of the fingertips. The integrity of it all mattered, and neither of them were the type to sacrifice a relevé in order to maximize the pas de chat that followed.

And so, of course neither of them were the type to mark their own choreography just because their relationship was strained. 

Junhui's tombée, pas de bourée sequence at the repeat of the opening lines was as dramatically different in height as he could make them, downstage and to the right of him, Wonwoo was the same. Their renversés, turning in opposite directions, led to matching high arabesques, knees straight and toes as high behind them as their backs allowed, before their legs lowered and bent to send them forward, a chase of jetés entrelacés, until they were side by side with a gulf of studio space between them. A pair of sissondes, a pair of sweeping arm gestures, another pair of sissondes, and then a coordinated quadruple pirouette, set en dehors, one turning stage right, the other turning stage left. Reverse brisés landing back to back and swivelling to face each other, ronds de jambes en l'air en dedans until their toes touched and immediately switching forward arms such that their fingertips lightly brushed as well. 

Everywhere Wonwoo touched was fire, Junhui's skin crawling with heat and tingling pain. Everywhere Wonwoo looked was ice, his eyes boring holes into Junhui's own whenever their gazes were supposed to meet, and as Junhui took his hand to send him in a half-lift, he felt like he was burning and freezing to death.

The spot at his elbow where their arms crossed before lifting to frame their faces in a box throbbed and stung, he could barely keep his hand on Wonwoo’s shoulder, nearly flinched at the feeling of the hand on his back. A skip, a jump, a reach forward, their thighs pressed together. An arm around the back of his neck and Wonwoo spun, one leg in attitude, off of Junhui’s hip.

Only when the paired section ended and they slipped away from each other did Junhui finally breathe again. There was something to be said about that, like feeling suffocated in a relationship and finding freedom when they were separated.

Their original vision come to fruition.

As the music swelled to the edge of its precipice, the choreography followed the structure of the rapid rondo section with Junhui sitting at the lowest point of his plié following a failli assemblé while Wonwoo soared high and stayed suspended in the air for an entrechat six, Wonwoo bent low in a passing chassé while Junhui echoed an entrechat quatre. Fouettés, always in opposite directions, Wonwoo always to the left because his turns were universally better than Junhui’s and Junhui turned better toward the right, falling into chaînés diagonally across the studio to where the furthest back wings would be located on stage, staring across at each other.

His breathing came in gasps, his chest heaving as he looked forward. It was real. What they were doing, it wasn’t just rehearsing for a show. It was dancing a message, a conversation, coming to represent the relationship of two people and how they lost it and none of it was a pretense for the audience. The look in Wonwoo’s eyes, it wasn’t just because of the melancholic music, it wasn’t just because this was what their choreography called for. No, it was genuine emotion, his feelings in the here and now, and it pained Junhui to think about what his own face must look like.

Not that the breath in the music allowed for thoughts like that. A penché forward, rising back up to broadly open port de bras, arms spread out as wide as his fingertips could go. The music was slowing, but Junhui’s heartbeat was catching in his throat, the last run forward into the crazy across the back barrel roll that only someone like Jeon Wonwoo could come up with, slowing immediately to a deliberate walk, heads facing forward until the quarter-stage marks. Junhui wanted to turn his head. He almost did, but it wasn’t part of the choreography, and after all that, the integrity of their piece was the most important thing in the world. He didn’t look back. The music stopped.

“Again?” Junhui asked, voice trembling, speaking softly into the wall. It wasn’t practice that they needed, even if they never had worked out the synchronization for the mirrored movements. That had just arrived naturally in their movements. If that rehearsal had been their actual culminating dance at the theatre stage, in front of the hundreds of family members and students and teachers who were watching, they would have won first place, no question. For all the wrong reasons.

Junhui swallowed a painful lump in his throat, and willed himself not to cry as he shuffled toward the sound system, fingers shaking so hard he couldn’t enter his passcode in correctly on his phone.

“We are _not_ doing that again. _Ever_ ,” Wonwoo said harshly, taking three steps to reach where Junhui was standing, feet leaving loud smacks against the floor. He yanked the phone out of Junhui’s hands hard enough to unplug it from the headphone jack. He was also shaking, but whether it was from anger or because Wonwoo was as emotionally drained from that performance as he was, Junhui didn’t know.

“Give that back,” he said slowly, holding up one palm.

“What, this?” Wonwoo shook the phone in his hand a little, voice dripping with sarcasm, venom, both. “This little gadget that seems to be working perfectly fine, even though you’ve been acting like it’s an overpriced chunk of metal?” He scoffed, darted his eyes to the corner of the room for only a second. “Just chose not to read any of my texts, did you? Weren’t in your room to open the door? Tell me, Am I misunderstanding something?”

“Let’s run it one more time,” Junhui said, carefully looking past Wonwoo’s jaw, at a spot on the wall behind him.

“That’s impossible, say something that makes sense,” Wonwoo seethed, volume barely above a whisper. His tone was a dagger. All of that anger, and the blade pointed at Junhui. His voice rose as he spoke, “I know we decided on a break up story as the narrative of the choreography, but two people can’t break up if they were never together in the first place.”

Junhui was trying not to look, but the expression on Wonwoo’s face, it was louder than his words, stormy and dark.

“I don’t know what you mean.” He couldn’t say those words while looking at Wonwoo, but he darted his eyes back quickly afterward for the response.

Wonwoo didn’t actually say the words, “fuck you,” to Junhui, but the sentiment was conveyed in his eyes. He flung the phone forwards into Junhui’s chest, and Junhui raised his hands up instinctively to catch it. When he looked up again, rubbing a spot on his sternum, Wonwoo had collected all of his things and had left the studio, closing the door behind him with a loud clang.

If anything, it should have been Junhui to leave, so Wonwoo could use the studio space. He only had a few months left before they graduated and Wonwoo didn’t think he was going to get to dance again after high school, so using the opportunities they had while they still had the chance was important. Not to mention, they were going to get graded on this project, so practicing it would probably help their marks. Ah fuck, Junhui had really thought they could just go back to being strangers.

His chest ached, and it wasn’t because of the bruise blossoming from where the edge of his cellphone had smacked against bone.

The only upside he could think of for all of this was that he hadn’t caught a cold.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

Things went back to normal after that. By normal, Junhui meant what his life was like before Wonwoo. It was fine. Life before Wonwoo was absolutely fine.

He woke up, went to class, ate with Soonyoung and Jihoon, partnered with Soohee, listened to Minghao wax poetic about all the ways in which Jieqiong changed his life. Movie night died out, and in its place, Seungkwan and Seokmin had turned into a live jukebox show. Mingyu avoided him in the cafeteria, Junhui avoided people in general. If he wasn’t scheduled to be somewhere and it wasn’t a meal time, he was either in Jihoon’s room to study and listen to Soonyoung whine, or in his own room sleeping, or pretending to sleep.

These days, Soonyoung kept shooting concerned looks at him when he thought Junhui wasn’t close enough to see what he was doing, so he made a point of spending time around him so he’d have less opportunity to do that worrying thing. He aced another math test, although he struggled to finish the last question in time, getting distracted halfway through by the way Wonwoo’s hair stood up from him running his fingers through it in frustration. A month ago, Junhui might have stood up at the end of class, when all the papers were collected, and walked over to Wonwoo with his face pressed against the surface of his desk, run a hand through his hair to flatten it down. It was easier this way, not to have the privilege of being able to do things like that.

Wonwoo was right, after all. You couldn’t lose something you never really had.

The Saturday afterward, Junhui sneaked around the corner from studio 4B, looked in on a despondent Wonwoo with red-rimmed eyes and droopy toes, and turned around. He was haunted by his guilt at every step, but it hurt less this way.

This was his thought process: it was better now, when both of them had nothing, to separate them like ripping off a bandaid. The wound would close, this chapter of their lives would end, and no one would become too emotionally invested to make it impossible to get over an unhappy ending. They’d head off to university next year, in different programs if not different schools, and high school would be a memory. Just like middle school was barely a memory to Junhui, everything foggy and forgotten, exactly the way he wanted it to be.

There was a single invariable truth of reality that Junhui knew, and it was that people who meet always part. The anger and despondency, it just made the parting easier.

“What did you do?” Minghao asked with a sigh, toeing the back of Junhui’s knee while slouched in his desk chair. “I told you not to do anything stupid, but you’ve gone and done something stupid.”

Junhui lifted up his head to rest his chin on his hands, lying down on his front and becoming intimately acquainted with the pattern of the floor in Minghao’s room.

“I didn’t do anything,” Junhui whined, kicking his legs up to stop Minghao from prodding at him with his socked feet.

“Really? And you’re supposed to be the older one out of the two of us?” Minghao rolled his eyes and rolled back his chair away from Junhui’s prone body.

“Yeah, I am older than you! I should hit you more often for the complete lack of respect you have for your elders, honestly.” Weak jokes and nothing more.

“When you earn it,” Minghao said firmly. “I’d be more inclined if you weren’t lying on the ground and moping.”

“I’m not moping,” Junhui contested with a frown on his face and droopy eyes.

“No? You don’t call this moping? Come on, my Korean’s not that bad, hyung, just admit that you’re full of sadness and self pity right now.”

“I’m not sad either,” Junhui complained, rolling over onto his back and staring up at the ceiling. He had memorized the way the floor looked, so he might as well memorize what the panels above him looked like too.

Minghao tampered down the part of him that wanted to run over Junhui’s hands with the wheels of his chair on purpose. “Stop lying so blatantly. I can’t believe you actually did something stupid when I expressly warned you not to. I feel like a parent saying to a child, what did I tell you about sticking sharp metal objects into the electric socket?”

“I swear I didn’t do anything stupid. I did the smart thing okay? It’s just that the thing was kinda, I don’t know, painful.” Junhui lifted up his hand to scratch at his nose and Minghao lost the temptation to squash his fingers.

“Does this have something to do with the fact that you’ve been spending every other day lying down in my room and pretending not to be fighting a cold war with Wonwoo-hyung for the past two weeks?” Minghao asked, in the manner of someone who already knew the answer to their question.

Junhui exhaled quickly, and then forced himself to breathe slower. His eyes slid shut, and all he could see in the back of his eyelids were the dotted marks on the ceiling of Minghao’s room, each one embedded into his vision, each one threatening to morph and connect until the lines formed the shape of Wonwoo’s face and Junhui slammed his head back against the floor in his rush to reopen his eyes.

Minghao sighed and tried not to worry about Junhui and concussions. “Look, if I were a best friend but not a good friend, I’d let you not talk about it and ignore the issue and pretend everything’s fine and dandy even though Mingyu and I can’t stop being passive aggressive about everything to each other these days.” He stopped talking to check that Junhui was still breathing. Satisfied with the rise and fall of his chest, Minghao continued, “But I’m not a best friend, rather, I’m a good one. And if you’re going to be this miserable all the time and force your cloud of dark energy on me, I think you should do some introspection. Figure out why you’re so upset. Did he hurt you? I’ll fuck him up, I’m the upcoming martial arts club president. Did you two fight? Figure out a way to make up. Whatever happened, either stop being so upset about it, or figure out a way to make things better.”

Junhui bent his knees to fold his legs in a butterfly pose and felt his hips crack. He drummed his quadriceps with his fists and turned his head. “It’s not that simple.”

“Did I say the word simple anywhere in there?” Minghao asked exasperatedly. He shoved his hands into the center pocket of his hoodie and tsked. “Are you losing your hearing as well? I’m serious, hyung, I really thing you should get your head checked out.”

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“Don’t you think Soohee wants to try partnering with someone else?” Soonyoung asked lightly in technique class, elbowing Junhui’s stomach while glancing upward to look at someone behind Junhui.

“No, of course not, who wouldn’t want to partner with me?” Junhui scoffed, and it was such a typical answer of him pre-Wonwoo that he gave himself a figurative pat on the back for resuming a semblance of normalcy.

Soohee overheard, shot him a withering look, and pretended to slap him while hiding her own laugh.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“Don’t you think we should get more food from the lunch ladies?” Soonyoung asked in the cafeteria, eyes narrowing at a figure a few seats away, tray stacked high with more food than the rest of his tablemates combined.

Junhui shook his head and said matter of factly, “No, they’d probably make us pay even more money if the food costs went up.” He knocked back the rest of his tofu stew and didn’t think about the fact that today’s meat was fish.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“Don’t you think we should stop letting the younger grades run rampant with their noraebang nights? Movie night was better than this, wasn’t it?” Soonyoung looked at wits’ end, hands twisted around the hem of his shirt to prevent himself from folding them together to make a plea.

“No, the movies that were picked were always shitty,” Junhui said, with an over-exaggerated yawn, and flipped a page in his English workbook. Seungkwan stood and moved to sit beside Junhui with a smile, singing made-up ‘thank you’ lyrics while Junhui hummed along and Seokmin patted Junhui’s shoulder as soon as the song ended.

“You’re the best, hyung,” Seokmin said happily, “we should go eat Chinese food together this weekend.”

“Of course,” Junhui nodded, not once looking up from the page.

“I give up.” Soonyoung groaned into his pillow, “You two just sing until someone comes and yells at you for being too loud, and then we’ll see who’s really the best.”

“Don’t talk about comparisons, you don’t want this to drag into a singing competition,” Junhui warned.

He wasn’t completely obtuse. He knew that Soonyoung wanted to open up the can of worms that Junhui had persistently smacked into closing. It had been three weeks since the CSAT, and Junhui’s life had calmed down, even if things hadn’t smoothed over.

Soonyoung had been trying for a week, but was very clearly not good at talking out things in a subtle way. With him it was either hitting you over the head with a hammer, or so covert that Junhui found it easy to fake misconstruing what he meant and Soonyoung would become flustered before quickly giving up. It seemed like Jihoon had given him a spiel about restraining himself, so Soonyoung had been antsy and unable to figure out how to broach the topic.

So when Soonyoung said he had given up, Junhui knew he wasn’t really talking about the singing or the films, but about his attempts to take action. And Junhui did take that at face value, but he might have played right into Soonyoung’s trap. Soonyoung wasn’t this good at planning things out in advance was he?

Junhui never expected that they’d try to rope Seokmin into working against him too.

He was sitting at a single person study carrel in the library, diligently writing out physics equations without processing what they meant. Junhui jerked up out of his seat when he heard the whisper of his name, and nearly gave himself whiplash from looking around to find its source.

“Hyung,” Seokmin whined quietly, face pulled down to look like a sad puppy. “You said you would take me to eat! You can’t go back on your word to a junior, that’s cruel.” He tugged on the sleeve of Junhui’s white knit sweater with a pout. “Besides, next year you won’t even be here so there aren’t that many chances anymore!”

“Yeah, alright, I guess I can take a break now. Let’s go,” Junhui said, packing up his books into his backpack. He liked Seokmin well enough, and he did agree to eat with him. It wasn’t like he was accomplishing a lot of work anyway, and plus he was pretty hungry. The clincher was that he didn’t want the other people in the library to glare at him because they were being too loud.

“Can we get sweet and sour pork?” Seokmin asked, once they had escaped the beady eyes of the librarian. “I know that’s not really authentic, but I really like it!”

“Sure,” Junhui said, laughing. He hiked the strap of his bag back up. The December wind was blustering and his puffy coat, other than not providing enough friction to keep his backpack on his shoulders, was doing a good job of keeping him warm.

“You said the Chinese version of black bean noodles was different right? Zha jiang mian? I want to try that to see what it tastes like.” Seokmin shivered slightly. He wasn’t wearing a scarf and the collar of his jacket didn’t cover enough of his neck.

Junhui patted around in his pockets until he found the white knit and looped it over Seokmin’s head. “In Chinese it’s not really black bean,” he said with a hum. “It’s like…fried sauce?”

“Thanks,” Seokmin said with a grin. “I’ll try it. What else is good that I should eat?”

“How hungry are you? There’s no way you can eat everything in one sitting, so let’s just choose one or two dishes today and come back another time,” Junhui rationalized.

“Aw but hyung, how many times can we come back really? Unless you promise to come back and visit even when you’re not a high school student anymore.” Seokmin lifted his hands up into a ‘V’ underneath his chin, and grinned with his eyes curved into half moons.

“To see you troublemakers give me a headache? That sounds enticing.”

Seokmin playfully elbowed Junhui. “I knew you loved us juniors.”

Junhui nodded absently, and squinted up ahead. “Is that Jihoon?”

“What a coincidence!” Seokmin laughed, a little too loudly beside Junhui’s ear. “Jihoon-hyung! What are you doing here?”

Jihoon gave them both a dark look each as they approached and Junhui felt dread pooling in his stomach. This was not a coincidence, it was a trap, and if Jihoon was in on it then Soonyoung was sure to be nearby. Junhui was about to be ambushed by his friends on his home turf, he’d never be able to eat Chinese food without this memory again.

He watched as Jihoon permitted Seokmin to sling an arm around his neck affectionately, patted him on the back twice, hard enough to knock the wind out of Seokmin, and then wiggled out of his grip to poke Junhui in the ribs.

“Have you started the essay for English yet?” Jihoon asked casually, waddling with his fingertips tucked into the sleeves of his jacket. It was oversized enough to be Soonyoung’s, but then, Jihoon was generally a fan of wearing clothing that was a little large on him so Junhui couldn’t be sure.

Junhui shook his head and stuck his hands in his pockets. “That’s not due for a week and a half, isn’t it? I was going to read the assignment this weekend.” He looked over at Jihoon, who nodded but stared ahead. Belatedly, Junhui realized that was a distraction technique, and when he looked up, standing just inside the door of the Chinese restaurant, he wasn’t sure what to say. In the corner, several tables had been pieced together and Junhui could see Soonyoung, Seungkwan, Minghao, Mingyu and Junhui could guess who was sitting in the middle seat even if his eyes skipped over. Seokmin was walking ahead of them, blocking the view and Junhui’s left foot shifted backward half a step.

There was something digging into his back immediately, and Junhui flinched before turning around slightly, to see Jihoon scowling. “Look, you know I’m not the representative that gets sent out when we need a people person. That’s Soonyoung. He’s the one who holds your fucking hand and sits with you while you ugly cry and then pats your stupid head and tells you everything’s going to be okay and this is the next step forward and this is how the steps after that will work.” He muttered all this quickly and only loud enough for Junhui to hear.

“Don’t, Jihoonie, please,” Junhui replied quietly.

Jihoon ignored his request. “You know that if I’m the scout being sent out, it’s because things are past the point of cheesy-ass heart-to-hearts. That things are goddamn bad. And that my only purpose here is to threaten you into doing what I say.” He took a deep breath. “If you run, I’ll fucking cook you,” Jihoon whisper-chided into his shoulder blades, jabbing Junhui in the back once again so he stumbled forward, hip knocking against the edge of a nearby table.

For a brief moment, six heads turned toward the sound of the clang, and Junhui’s eyes shot up. Soonyoung shifted, leaning forward to see what had happened, and in the space his head left behind, Junhui’s eyes met Wonwoo’s.

Junhui was used to his stomach displaying a wide array of different reactions to Wonwoo, but the clenching was unusual.

In those seconds, it was as if the rest of the world had simply melted away. The planet had distilled to just the two of them, Wonwoo and Junhui, connected by a warp in time and space that brought them both into sharp clarity and left everything else fuzzy. Junhui’s breath caught in his chest and his fingers curled around nothing, fists squeezing hard.

Then Soonyoung’s head tilted back and the sounds of people speaking and cutlery clacking returned to his ears, and he took a step backward, right onto Jihoon’s foot. Jihoon swore loudly, hopping up onto his other foot and loosening his grip around the back of Junhui’s coat. It was enough for Junhui to pull away, shuffling back through the doorway and muttering hasty excuses and goodbyes without looking back.

It didn’t matter if Jihoon roasted him on a rotating spit over a bonfire later. Whatever his preferred method of preparation, it would be less painful than sitting with Wonwoo.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

The small towel draped around Junhui’s neck was no longer wide enough to catch the ends of Junhui’s hair, and water droplets beading and falling to the fabric of his long-sleeved shirt. It clung to his back where it was wet, but Junhui didn’t notice until half his shirt was soaked, and he scowled, tossing it into his laundry hamper before pulling on dry clothing and squeezing out excess water by wringing his hair with the towel.

Freshly showered and finally dressed, Junhui ambled toward his desk, slouched into his chair, and toyed with the home button of his phone. He considered the time that flashed across the screen and sighed, navigating to the familiar green icon in order to video call Feng Jun.

“Gege!” Feng Jun squealed when it connected, face appearing only a few moments later, nose a little too close to the camera for Junhui to see the rest of his face.

“Yangyang! How are you doing?” Junhui asked, trying to keep his tone as light and happy as it usually was when talking to his little brother.

“I have good news!” Feng Jun announced proudly, sticking one finger up beside his face. “It’s really big news!” He pulled the phone back away from his face a little, revealing the living room in the background.

“Alright, don’t keep me waiting, quickly tell me what happened,” Junhui instructed with a smile.

“Well, I have a girlfriend!” Feng Jun burst into giggles and the image on the screen blurred as his hand moved in excitement.

“Wow, congratulations!” Junhui smiled fondly at Feng Jun. “Is she a nice girl? Does mom know?”

“No! You can’t tell her! I mean, she’s not really my girlfriend yet but I told my friends that she was pretty and the next day Class 3’s class monitor Sun told me that she liked me! So it’s only a matter of time.”

“Of course, I’m very happy for you.” The happiness on Feng Jun’s face was sincere and innocent, and Junhui wished for even a little of that purity and ease when it came to thinking about feelings and relationships. He hadn’t meant to become jaded as he grew older, but there was no denying the cynicism monster raging in his heart and head these days.

“You can’t tell mom!” Feng Jun made a face, scrunching up all of his features and somehow becoming even more adorable. “She’ll tell me to focus on school, and that’s boring. I can be good in class and have a girlfriend, you do that too.”

Junhui raised a single eyebrow in question. “What do I do too?”

“Have a boyfriend and still get good grades!”

“What.” Junhui blinked.

“Isn’t round-round-ge-ge your boyfriend?” Feng Jun asked, puzzled, and Junhui choked on his pained laughter. Before he could figure out his own feelings, much less what to say to his little brother, the sound of slippers slapping against wooden floorboards and his mom calling out his name interrupted their conversation.

“Yangyang, did you tell your brother the good news?” She asked, one hand on her hips, the other holding onto a bundle of blankets tucked up against her hip. Dad had made sure that their renovated condo in Shenzhen had central heating, even though it wasn’t a common feature of buildings that far south in China, but it must have been still quite chilly in December. That and Feng Jun was generally terrible about keeping himself bundled up in the winter months, always complaining that it was too warm, and protesting loudly tha he’d never get sick (he always got sick).

“Wait, about Yangyang’s girl—” Junhui was pretty sure he was getting whiplash from all the directions this conversation was going in, but at least the confusion meant he wasn’t focused on what it meant that even his little brother thought he was dating.

“—Oh yeah! That good news!” Feng Jun interrupted, shaking his head vigorously behind their mother’s back. “I was trying to make _ge_ guess.”

“Has he figured it out then?” She chuckled and ruffled his hair with amusement.

“Nope, I guess we’ll just have to tell him,” he responded brightly, throwing up his hands into the air and shaking his tiny wrists. “Surprise, we’re coming to visit you!”

“Err…” Junhui leaned backward in his seat.

“The way the lunar new year break worked out, I think the three of us can all take an early vacation to come watch your end of year show,” his mom explained.

“The end of the year show?”

“That’s right. I thought we’d have to watch a video recording, or maybe just I would come, but your dad and Yangyang are both on holiday, so we’ve all bought our plane tickets and hotel bookings.”

“Oh. I, wow. That’s great to hear! I’m really happy you’re coming,” Junhui said, smiling miserably. “I’ll come see you at the airport of course.” He had been trying to forget about the end of the year show and his graduation project altogether, considering the past three and a half weeks. Having his parents be present in the audience to see the trainwreck that was bound to occur was not high on the list of things Junhui had wished for the new year. Feng Jun probably would clap loudly regardless of how the performance went, and fall asleep in the middle of the second act despite trying very hard to stay awake, so Junhui was less concerned about him. Although, if Feng Jun at any point wanted to be introduced to ‘round-round- _ge_ - _ge_ ’, Junhui was going to have to think up a lot of excuses. But his parents, they’d probably notice that something was up, if not over the grainy cellphone images, at least when they’d met in person.

“There’s no need for that! I’m sure you’ll need to spend as much time as possible with your handsome friend to work on last minute details. There’s no need to worry about us, we’ve been to Korea before. You just do your best in the performance so we can be amazed at your abilities, as usual. How’s your dance coming along?”

“Right,” Junhui started, “the preparations are going—” his voice hitched in his throat.

His mother quickly pressed the blankets into Feng Jun’s arms. “Yangyang, mom’s tired carrying these. Can you help me put these on mom and dad’s bed?”

Feng Jun nodded and bounded off.

Junhui looked upwards and blinked quickly while his mother navigated to the dining room, and pulled out a chair at the table. “Hui er, is everything okay?”

Well, too late for keeping it to when they met in person, she already figured him out.

It had been years, really, since he last felt like he had no control over his own emotions like this, really. He’d had sniffles, shed a few wayward tears, but not like this. In his dorm room, one hand held tightly onto his phone, the other folded over the desk, Wen Junhui cried into his own arm. Just as Junhui had no control over his tears, he had no control over the sounds he was making, ugly bawling muffled only a little by the fabric of his sweater, and his mother, hearing the noises her son was making, was just as heartbroken as her son.

All the way across the East China Sea, his mother watched helplessly, as she could do nothing to help soothe her son, not place her hand on his head, nor pull him into her embrace. Seeing him upset like this was hurting enough to a mother’s heart, but it was especially painful considering the smiling side of his face that he always tried to show. Junhui had made every effort to always be strong in front of everyone, and to see him beaten down like this was unbearable, and she couldn’t help but start crying too, silent streams of tears falling to her cheeks.

Junhui hated crying in front of his mother, not because he was ashamed to have emotions, nor because he thought it was a weakness, but because he knew that his own sadness would bring his mother sadness, and he could handle himself. He had that much responsibility in him, and he willed himself to stop, knowing that she would be upset at the sight. He shouldn’t have called Feng Jun in the first place, really.

But he couldn’t. He cried, and cried, and cried. He kept crying even as he wasn’t sure exactly what he was crying about, only that his chest ached with excruciating pain, and had been hurting for weeks now. His body was wracked with anguished sobs, at what was and what wasn’t, what could be and what couldn’t be. He wept, and wept, and wept. The enduring sadness at the core of him, the gloom he carried from day to day, all of it had been contained within him for so long, but the shield was punctured now, and so the stream of tears did not stop for a long time.

It seemed like hours later when he had no water left in him to cry out, and could only hiccough dryly. When they silent heaving of his chest died down to only once or twice a minute, he lifted up his eyes to look at his phone again, and closed them when he saw his mother dabbing at her cheeks with a tissue.

“Sorry,” Junhui croaked hoarsely.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said, voice rough but in better shape than his. “I’m the one who should be sorry, seeing my child cry like that. I haven’t done enough as a mother. Don’t tell me that you’re okay when you’re not, Hui er, tell me what’s wrong so I can help you fix things. Should I fly over myself now? I can take an early Christmas or New Year’s holiday.”

After that eruption of emotion, there was little Junhui wanted more than to be hugged by his mom, to hug her back, and feel warm and loved and protected. But that was a transient experience, and it wasn’t her life that was a mess. If there was anyone fixing things, it was going to be Junhui by himself.

“I miss you,” he whispered, “But I can see you in February anyway.”

“Okay, then tell this old mother of yours what’s gotten you so down,” she commanded.

He took a deep breath. “I, well, there’s someone else I miss too. I think that person took up a lot of space in my heart.”

“But?” She pushed.

Junhui lowered his forehead onto his arm with a groan, tears threatening to spill out again.

“Okay, I won’t ask you more about it. But I think you should think clearly, don’t let whatever you’re feeling build up and break you. If it’s about your performance, remember that you’re on a strict time deadline. And if the person you’re missing is that handsome friend of yours, you should know that I’ve just been waiting for you to ask me so I can say I approve of him.”

“You don’t even know him!” Junhui exclaimed, flabbergasted.

His mother smirked at the way Junhui shot up. “So it is about him then?”

Hei scowled. “We’re not, I don’t, that isn’t…”

“Do you know why I was going to approve him even if I hadn’t spoken to him before? Because I’ve never seen you happier than when I saw you around him.”

Junhui’s throat closed up, and he wondered how many tears a person stored in their body anyway. He shook his head, trying to tell his mother that he needed a change in topic, and his still damp hair splattered water across his face with the vigour of the movement.

“Look how long your hair is! When was the last time you got a haircut?” She said quickly, picking up on his signal.

“When we were in Bao An Airport you told me that you liked my hair long,” Junhui said with a slight wrinkle in his forehead. “Didn’t you also tell me that story about only sons being banished from their family getting their hair cut?”

Mother waved her hand in front of her face, face caught between a laugh and a scowl. “What century do we live in? That was a story for ancient times. These days haircuts symbolize a new beginning, which is a good thing, isn’t it?”

“But my hair was given to me by my parents,” Junhui said. “If I cut it, it’s like severing a link with you.”

“Nonsense. In this world, with today’s technology, it doesn’t matter if people separate. You can cut as many links as you want but there would still be another one remaining. You can’t be isolated anymore, not in the way people of the past could be. People meet, they part, but then they can still choose to reunite. We still see each other, don’t we?”

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“Hey Junhui, fancy seeing you here in this empty studio by yourself, I wasn’t looking for you or anything but—”

“Just out with it, Soonyoung,” Junhui said tiredly. He was sitting with one foot folded underneath his bum, still trying to rethread the drawstrings that had completely come out of his ballet slippers. He had borrowed a needle from Soohee, but he’d been at it for nearly twenty minutes and had only poked it up to about halfway.

“Oh well, Seokmin still had your scarf, and so I was going to return it to you—”

“Soonyoung, I’m way too fucking tired for this. Say whatever you want to say without the stupid preamble.”

Soonyoung sighed, bent his knees and placed his hands over his thighs before finally lowering to the ground beside Junhui, taking his time to stretch his legs out in front of him. “I think we all know what the elephant in the room is,” Soonyoung said, picking up Junhui’s other shoe and flopping the canvas back and forth against the floor. “Remember when you and Wonwoo were just ‘haven’t spoken to each other before’? Why is it now ‘won’t ever speak to each other again’?”

“It’s complicated,” Junhui bit out, and nearly jabbed himself in the finger.

“It always is. Look, okay, so on the first day of high school when you found Jihoon and I making out in a closet, and out of surprise I accidentally knocked over a shelf of stuff onto us, and instead of apologizing for disturbing us or asking if we were okay, the first thing you said was ‘I like kissing boys too’.”

“Hey, wait a second, that series of events did not go like that.”

“Semantics,” Soonyoung said with a wave of his hand. “And so I thought, ah, this Junhui kid, of course that’s why he turned down Eunjoo-noona’s offer to set him up with a pretty girl. But then Jeonghan-hyung happened, and I was confused for literally years, seriously, until you said you didn’t really like him. I was shocked at first, but I thought about it a little, and you were always shy and clingy to him, but you weren’t really yourself so I thought, okay, he was probably telling the truth.”

Junhui frowned, tongue poking out between his teeth as he rounded the curve at the heel of the shoe and yelped quietly when he nearly lost the elastic.

“I don’t know what happened between you two, but with Wonwoo, I don’t get it. I honestly had never seen you happier than when you two were all buddy-buddy.” That was the second person in two days to tell Junhui that. Fuck.

“Do you not like him?” Soonyoung asked.

“I…I like Wonwoo more than I’ve liked anyone else before in my life,” Junhui said honestly, putting down everything that was in his hands. His fingers had started to shake, and that would just lead to him bleeding over everything if he continued.

“Does he not like you?”

“That’s not the problem,” Junhui said slowly before biting his lower lip.

“Are your parents not okay with you liking guys? Is it because one of you thinks you’re too good for the other? Is there some tragic drama-esque fated to be apart thing that I don’t know about?”

“No, no, and definitely not.”

“Then what is it? You’re just not going to let yourself have a chance at happiness?”

“I can’t,” Junhui replied evenly, keeping his breath slow and calm.

“So it’s not your parents, it’s not a practical problem, it’s not some misplaced sense of who deserves what where you’re not giving him enough agency to make his own decisions, but something to do with you.” Soonyoung narrowed his eyes. “What is it, Junhui, stop saying the words ‘I can’t’ and explain why can’t you?”

People always talked about not letting the past define who you are. But the past was inescapable.

A person who had never learned a word of English prior to today, for example, wasn’t going to suddenly be able speak it simply because they wanted to redefine their existence on a whim. The same was true about Junhui’s life. He started anew, in a different country, that much was true. That didn’t mean running away from his past would really put it behind him. It didn’t mean that his previous life experiences didn’t shape his personality, his thoughts, his behaviour. It wasn’t like he was the type to hold on. That wasn’t it at all. Junhui wasn’t the one who couldn’t let go of the past, it was the claws of the past that wouldn’t release Junhui from its grasp.

The answer to Soonyoung’s question was many things. It was the past, it was the scars left behind on Junhui’s heart by a best friend who was never really a good one, it was those claws and the grip they had around Junhui’s heart.

But at the same time, it wasn’t any of that, not directly.

Really, it was because Junhui was scared. His past had turned into someone who was scared to be hurt again, scared of new wounds that would also scar, scared of an invisible hand squeezing around his chest, scared that history would repeat itself even in just a small way.

It had taken Junhui nearly a month to realize that.

“None of that matters anymore,” Junhui said, picking up his shoe and the needle again. He was three quarters of the way there now, and he forced his hands into stillness with nothing more than determination. “Whatever the reason, whatever happened, it’s not going to ever go back to the way things were before anymore. I destroyed that myself, on purpose at the time. But he’s, I really fucked things up. I fucked him over. I hate myself for it, and I’m overwhelmed by my own guilt every time I see him now, but that doesn’t absolve me of what I did.”

“That’s a stupid thing to say,” Jihoon interrupted, closing the door to the studio behind him with a bang.

“We’re having good sharing feelings time!” Soonyoung complained. “Stop ruining everything!”

“The restaurant thing was not my fault, I told you we should have had him come in first and then blocked the entryway so he couldn’t escape,” Jihoon muttered.

“Then we’d have the same experience in reverse with Wonwoo,” Soonyoung grumbled. “You were supposed to be able to control Junhui,” he continued with a scowl.

“How was I supposed to prepare for my toes being crushed?” Jihoon protested. “Anyway, it’s obvious that things won’t go back to the way they were before. Nothing ever goes back. The past remains the past and you can’t change it. That’s not how time moves. Maybe one day we’ll invent time travel, I doubt it, but regardless, right now, you can only go forward. You must go forward.”

“You don’t understand. I knew what would happen. I remember what it was like when we had that fight after summer break, he was a mess. And knowing that, I decided I’d just crush him to pieces like that again.”

“That’s true,” Soonyoung said. “You’re a bit of a dick for doing that. Yeah, Wonwoo doesn’t sleep, doesn’t eat, only reads books and is constantly moody, doesn’t even make his shitty-ass jokes anymore. But he’s not the only person I see who’s miserable, you know. I have this other friend who also looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks, always has slightly red eyes, mopes about in his room 24/7, doesn’t laugh at jokes, doesn’t look happy dancing or reading, doesn’t talk to anyone unless he has to. Oh, that one’s name is Junhui and I’m staring at him right now.”

“What are you saying?”

“You’re clearly unhappy with the current state of affairs. Wonwoo’s clearly unhappy with the current state of affairs. You guys can’t just ignore this forever. You still have the year end performance to think about, and the lack of closure is going to be worse than anything that could happen if you two just talked.”

Junhui snorted derisively, not believing Soonyoung’s words.

Soonyoung rolled his eyes. “Honestly, I don’t know what the outcome will be, and I don’t know what the best solution is. Between us, I’d be better off if you guys ended up not dating because then Jihoon will have to pay for lunch for me for a week.”

“Wait a second, did you two make a bet on us dating?”

“Who the fuck reveals something like that, Kwon Soonyoung, what the hell is wrong with your head? Or your goddamn mouth, because I highly suspect you don’t have a brain,” Jihoon whined, picking up Junhui’s left shoe to smack Soonyoung in the arm with it.

“Jihoon’s always right, okay? And you know what, I’m willing to buy his meals even though I’m broke, because I think you two can be happy together. And I just want to see my friends happy. This rift is honestly taking a toll on my sanity, just yesterday I thought I was going to lose my life when Jihoon and Mingyu started fighting in his room, and I mean like a brawl, fists flying, kicks landing everywhere, me caught in the crossfire.”

“You and Mingyu had a fight?” Junhui exclaimed in disbelief.

“Yah, Kwon Soonyoung, shut your fucking mouth!” Jihoon yelled. His voice echoed off the walls and a silence descended over the three of them briefly. He sighed after a while, fingernails digging into the sole of the shoe he was still holding. “Yeah, Mingyu had some righteous notion about you being an asshole and how we shouldn’t talk to you.”

“You shouldn’t,” Junhui said matter-of-factly.

“You shut the fuck up too,” Jihoon said sourly. “I’ll tell you now what I told him then. I don’t give a shit what happened or what will happen. I don’t have a single fucking clue how my life came to end up like this, but somehow, Wen Junhui, you’ve become _ours_. Soonyoung and I aren’t going to leave you dangling. Ever. You need back up for anything? We will fucking be there. You get into a fight? We will be on your fucking side. So help me God I don’t know what that’s true, but it is, and there’s nothing you can do or say to change that.”

Junhui really did stab himself in the finger with the needle then, but it wasn’t enough to draw blood. He yelped just the same, and it distracted him enough that he didn’t cry at what Jihoon said. He wasn’t sure how to express how touched they made him feel, but he was sure that Jihoon probably didn’t want to hear it.

“Okay, now that we’ve all drawn our battle lines, you actually have to go to the warfront, Junhui,” Soonyoung said. “I mean, not that I think you guys should fight, just that, you have to confront your fears, face your issues, and actually work out your problems. Use words. Talk. No fists.”

“Wonwoo wouldn’t try to punch me in the head,” Junhui said calmly, “no, he’d try to bite my head off.”

“No biting either,” Soonyoung said sternly. “Just talk to each other. Whether that ends up in you being patched up, or fucking like rabbits, or mortal enemies forever, you can’t just hang onto this shit forever. Seriously, it’s been a month.”

“Soonyoung, your fucking mouth,” Jihoon ground out.

“I know, I know, there’s no good thing about it unless it’s around your cock,” Soonyoung said with a wink.

Jihoon smashed the shoe against his own face and tried to melt into the floor where he was sitting.

“Are you okay, hyung?” came Seokmin’s voice from the door. He was standing with one elbow leaning against the frame, and a wide grin on his mouth.

“It’s our favourite Seokminnie!” Soonyoung cheered, rising to his feet and zooming to the door.

Junhui watched as the two of them slipped away together, arms around each other’s shoulders, chatting amicably about something or another.

“He wasn’t supposed to leave me to finish the pow-wow by myself,” Jihoon moaned.

“Do you ever get worried?” Junhui asked, eyes still on the door, now shut. His mouth was drawn together, and his brows slightly angled downward.

Jihoon peeked open one eye. “Worried about what? That Soonyoung’s going to lose his head because there’s no brain in there?”

“No, I mean, those two,” Junhui said, angling his head in the direction of where Soonyoung had been sitting.

“Oh. That Soonyoung’s going to leave me for Lee Seokmin? Good riddance.” Jihoon snorted, remembered that he was still holding something that normally went around a person’s foot to his face, and dropped the canvas slipper in his hand quickly.

“I’m not worried. Because that’s what…love…is, isn’t it? Making yourself vulnerable. Caring about people. Trusting that they won’t break you even if they could.” Jihoon gagged a little at himself. “God that was sappy, let’s never talk about this again. But I mean, even if that was a thing, even if it happened, that doesn’t make what we’ve had not worth it. If Soonyoung and I ever break up, the pain I’d feel wouldn’t negate the happiness I felt while we were together.”

Junhui nodded solemnly, chewing on that information.

“If you tell anyone I said that, not only would they not believe you, I’ll find you and cut your throat and leave you to bleed out,” Jihoon said, whipping his neck around to pin Junhui with one of his most frightening glares. It wasn’t all that scary, since Junhui knew that Jihoon was really a very kind person underneath his prickly exterior.

“In other news, isn’t it funny that Soonyoung wants you and Wonwoo to get together even though that would mean he lost the bet?”

“Um, I guess?”

“Isn’t it even funnier that I would rather lose the bet and be wrong for the first time in my life than let someone like Jeon Wonwoo date you?”

“What?”

Jihoon stared at Junhui blankly. “He calls me ‘Hoon-ah’. Sometimes he naps on my shoulder. How am I supposed to threaten him not to hurt you if he’s not suitably terrified of me?” He frowned. “Not that I care whether or not you’re hurt. Ah fuck it. I’m serious Junhui, you’re one of ours.”

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

“What the _fuck_ are you doing here? What the hell do _you_ want?”

“Language,” Junhui started to teasingly chide, but was interrupted by the bang of Mingyu’s door hitting the wall as he kicked it all the way open.

Mingyu stood in the doorway, arms crossed and using full advantage of his height to take up space and look threatening, as if the expression on his face and the tone of his voice weren’t menacing enough. “Don’t you fucking dare try to lecture me right now, Junhui-hyung, or I swear I’ll bash your head in with this door without listening to another word you have to say.”

Junhui winced and put up his hands placatingly. He’d stewed on his conversation with Jihoon and Soonyoung for the rest of the day and an entire night before figuring out his course of action. He needed to apologize for his actions, that much was clear, and he was going to need all the help he could get. Although it wasn’t looking likely that Mingyu would be offering any aid anytime soon. “Okay, okay let’s not resort to violence, we have words, Mingyu-ya.”

Mingyu blinked, a disbelieving snort of half-exasperation, half-amusement escaped his mouth. He shook his head. “Words! Hah! I tried that! In fact, I did use those things!” He uncrossed his arms to smack an open palm against the frame of the door, and Junhui flinched. “I explained to you, with _words_ , that Wonwoo-hyung does not trust people. That people do not take the time to know him.” His expression hardened. “The words came out of your own damn mouth that he uses his face as a defence mechanism just because he thinks people have bad intentions. You recognized that he doesn't have a lot of friends, that he's really nice but he hides it so he isn't taken advantage of. You said it yourself.”

Mingyu was seething, and Junhui felt that his anger was pretty justified. It hadn’t dawned on him then what the purpose of that subject of conversation before Wonwoo’s birthday was, but now, in retrospect, it was Mingyu’s version of a shovel talk, maybe. A warning, at the very least. That Junhui had blindly chosen not to heed, and he was paying for it now. He deserved that.

“I _told_ you to watch out for him, I spelled it out for you, hyung. And what do you do? The second he dives headfirst into something that makes him happy for once, the very first time in his entire life that's he done anything like that, you fucking bastard let him sink while swimming away alone.” He gestured forward with his arm once before letting his hand slap down against his thigh, the noise ringing out and reverberating with the message in Junhui’s ears.

“You’re.” Junhui swallowed. Completely right. He tugged at the collar of his shirt.

Mingyu hadn’t finished his rant and bulldozed straight over Junhui with more vehemence than he imagined possible for someone of Mingyu’s bubbly demeanour. “Didn’t you stop to think, just for one second, considering the relationship you two had cultivated for the past school year that he deserved at least a half-hearted explanation? At least a pretty little lie even if you couldn’t divulge the truth? Weren’t you two _friends_? Didn’t he deserve at least that much?”

“That’s not it, friendship isn’t a bank account, it’s not debit and credit like that—”

“—No, sorry,” Mingyu scoffed, sarcasm dripping from his tone, “Excuse me, you don’t owe him anything. Both of us just thought you were a decent freaking human being, except you turned out to be a heartless monster! And he’s still defending you! ‘Oh he must have a reason, Mingyu, Junhui’s not utterly unreasonable, he’s great.’”

“I did have one,” Junhui tried weakly. It was stupid and insufficient even as it came off his own tongue.

“I don’t fucking care!” Mingyu exploded, screaming into Junhui’s face. Junhui might have been frightened about Mingyu chewing off his head if there weren’t also tears in his eyes as he spoke, blinked back hurriedly to cover up for the emotional outburst. “I don’t care if you have a million reasons! I don’t give a shit what your goddamn sob story is, it doesn’t matter! Just because there’s an explanation, just because there’s reason for you to have pain or suffering or whatever – that absolutely does not give you a free pass to be an asshole to other people! It doesn’t! I don’t care what anyone says, you can’t be excused for something like that!”

“You’re right! You’re absolutely right, I’m a complete and utter asshole, apologies are not enough, and my explanations don’t excuse what I did,” Junhui said quickly, trying to get as many words in while Mingyu paused for breath as he could. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I fucked up, and it doesn’t change the fact that Wonwoo’s upset, and I have to fix that. I made him miserable, and I should suffer for it, but he shouldn’t have to continue being miserable. And I don’t think anything’s helped make him feel better, so please let me have a shot.”

Mingyu opened and closed his mouth with two clicks of his jaw, and then glowered. It was true that nothing he had been trying was working to make Wonwoo happier, but that had only served to make Mingyu angrier because there wasn’t anything he could do to help his best friend. Fucking piece of shit Wen Junhui.

“Why are you here?” Mingyu asked coolly.

“I need your help,” Junhui supplied meekly. At least they were speaking civilly now, although Junhui wasn’t sure that was going to last.

“My help. How the hell can I help you? What makes you think that I will help you?”

“Well, I wanted to ask you to do two things. I think you’ll help me with the first one because you care about Wonwoo, and you’re a good friend. The second is me cashing in on the fact that you wouldn’t let anyone else do this without complaining.”

“Just tell me what it is,” Mingyu said, rapidly becoming annoyed and unfriendly again.

Junhui took a deep breath. “I need you to remind him that he’s not alone in this world. That he can trust people. That people don’t leave him because he lacks worth but because those people are shits.”

“I can do that. In fact, I have been doing precisely that for the past three weeks because _someone_ did a number to prove otherwise to him,” Mingyu said, glaring and re-crossing his arms.

Junhui nodded. “Right. Uh. The second thing…The second thing is that I need you to give me a haircut.”

“Oh my God.”

“Please, Mingyu-ya.”

“Oh my _fucking God_.”

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

Mingyu had one thing completely right. If Junhui wanted to fix things, there wasn’t anyone who could help him. He had to put things right himself, but if he gave himself too much time to think about it, he’d lose his nerve. Knowing the right words to say was overrated anyway.

He rubbed the gel Mingyu had given him between his palms self-consciously and lifted his hands up to the top of his forehead before slowly combing his hair back with his fingers. The product was heavy and it was still weird running out of hair so quickly. Junhui stared at his reflection in the mirror and felt a brief pang of regret at no longer being able to tie his hair up in a ponytail. He already missed not being able to tuck it back behind his ear, hands restless as they came up to brush against the short ends at the back of his head. At least he didn’t look terrible, even if it was very different.

Morning routine finished, Junhui had nothing left to procrastinate with. He had already put off this conversation for too long, as things were, and making up an excuse as to not knowing where Wonwoo would be this time of day on a Saturday would be an injustice to his mental faculties. After picking up his dance bag and slapping his own cheeks to get himself ready, Junhui set off for the main school building with a thick winter coat around his shoulders and prickling anxiousness sitting in his stomach.

There wasn’t a click when he opened the door, he made sure to turn the handle down slowly, opened the door fluidly, and then grabbed the handle on the other side and pulled it shut with barely any sound. That didn’t stop Wonwoo from dropping his retiré to fix Junhui with a look anyway, only a moment of wildness in his eyes before his expression became perfectly blank. If it were eight months ago, Wonwoo would have cambrioled indefinitely unless Junhui specifically asked him to stop, and definitely wouldn’t have gotten distracted by small movements in the corner of the studio. But the past, Junhui supposed, was the past. It wasn’t something you could ever go back to. It was things that had happened, and things that wouldn’t change. The only thing you could do was move forward, and change the future. Junhui could recognize what he wanted now, and it was for his future, whatever it had in store for him, to be one where Jeon Wonwoo was still a main character in Junhui’s life. If Wonwoo should be so willing.

He took a deep breath. “Let’s run through it?” he suggested lightly. The words were unexpected even to him, and Wonwoo didn’t nod, but he didn’t shake his head either. Junhui headed toward the speakers on shaky feet, plugged in the phone, and recalled with sharp clarity the last time he had been standing here. Wonwoo didn’t have anything in his hands to throw at him this time, which was a positive.

They danced.

Well, Wonwoo’s body was practically singing he was so fluid and expressive, but Junhui mostly just chugged along, always moving but with awkwardly straight lines. It wasn’t that he’d stopped practicing or rehearsing entirely, but he was painfully self-conscious. Mostly, he was scared. Junhui was terrified of touching Wonwoo, of messing up the choreography, of hurting Wonwoo more than he already had. He had many, many, fears, now, and he cowered in the face of them.

In the weeks between their rehearsals, their positions had switched. It was Junhui now who was tired and unsure of himself and miserable looking, while Wonwoo had taken on the mantle of being composed and functional and expressionless.

The music stopped, and Wonwoo raised a single eyebrow.

Junhui lowered himself to the floor, pulled his knees up against his chest and wrapped his arms around his shins. “I promised you I’d tell you why I came to Korea once.”

Wonwoo looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. Didn’t comment on how this was generally shitty timing, didn’t ask any questions. He looked like he wanted to sigh too, but he didn’t, kept his mouth closed and breathing steady. There was a slight twitch in his lower cheeks, and for a fraction of a second he looked like wanted to frown too, but the twitch led to nothing and Wonwoo finally sat himself down, tucking his feet underneath him with his legs crossed.

“It wasn’t my idea, originally. To start from the beginning, I moved cities between elementary school and middle school. The school I changed into one of those ones where you have to take an entrance exam and they accept you based on your grades. It was a school people wanted to go to because it was known as a feeder school to a prestigious high school in the city, and 99% of their graduates all went to that high school. Most of the people came from all over, but usually in at least pairs, if not larger groups. I was the only person there who hadn’t gone to the same school as anyone else.

“It wasn’t a really big problem. Everyone had to make new friends. There was one guy, though, who hadn’t won out at the top of the pyramid and I guess that made him angry enough to look for easy targets. I don’t think I was a particularly easy target because I could defend myself against him.” Junhui half-smirked briefly. “But then he started showing up with two or three other guys, so I just did whatever he wanted me to get him out of my hair.” He looked up at his own bangs, pushed up and back with hair gel, and shrugged.

“It was just a small inconvenience for a few months, until things changed. I don’t remember what day it was, but I remember the weather. I remember the schoolyard smelling earthy and like the indoor swimming pool at the nearby university. And I remember thinking to myself that it was a shame I hadn’t brought an umbrella.

“They took me out to the bay. We walked, and by the time we were close, the storm clouds had already turned dark and there was thunder in the distance. I asked him what he wanted, and he probably said something, might have laughed, I don’t remember that part anymore. But it started to rain. Not just an uncomfortable drizzle, either, but hard and fast and everything was soaked pretty quickly.

“His friends wanted to go home. They told him to hurry up, and so he finally got around to what he wanted to do, which was toss his own backpack over the guardrail and tell me to go fetch it. He said if I didn’t, the rest of them would report that I had stolen it, and if that wasn’t enough, they pushed me over onto the rocks.”

There was a sharp inhale, and Junhui couldn’t be sure if it was himself or Wonwoo. He wasn’t present in the studio anymore, his mind having taken his body back to that day, all of his senses alert to his surroundings, that awful stench of ozone clogging his nose and making it difficult to breathe.

“I don’t remember the next part that clearly. It was slippery, it was dark, and all I could smell was that smell you get in the air after a lightning bolt strikes, and the taste of my own fear in my mouth. I found his bag eventually, tossed it back over to them, tried to get up over the guardrail myself, but he pushed my hand off and I slid backward, nearly fell into the ocean.

“Someone caught my arm though. It was one of our classmates, and we’d never talked before, but we went to the same dance academy, although for different classes. He helped me up and that day the guy found a new target.

“His name was Mingming.

“He was one of those people who sit in the back of the classroom and never look like they’re paying attention, but if a teacher calls on them, always has the right answer. And for a few days after that, he kept showing up to class with new cuts or bruises, and telling me not to worry about it.

“It was weird, those days. I wasn’t having to do things I didn’t want to do anymore, but I felt guilty knowing that someone else was taking up that guy’s inferiority complex. I thought about doing something, debated back and forth with myself.

“But one day, he stopped showing up with new injuries. It just stopped. The guy was still an asshole, but he stopped beating up Mingming and he stopped trying to make me his slave, and I assumed that Mingming had just gotten him back somehow, but I didn’t question it. I was just happy to no longer have someone breathing down my neck.

“Plus, I was happy to have a new friend. Mingming was one of those people who loved to talk back, but he basically saved my life, so I kept prodding at him to find his soft side. I clung to him, wanted to be best friends, and he allowed it.” Junhui’s voice softened. “That was a nice period of time. It had taken years, but I finally felt like I belonged in that place.”

“No, it wasn’t that I belonged in that place. It was that as long as Mingming was there, it felt like I at least had a place.”

Suddenly, Wonwoo’s eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips into a thin line, like he knew exactly what Junhui was about to say.

“I thought I was in love with him. Maybe I was. It doesn’t matter. I told him, and for a moment he looked horrified at my confession, but then he went along with it. And I thought, for a while at least, that I understood the concept of love, why people got married, why being alone sometimes didn’t feel like enough. I was happy. When you’re, I don’t know, fourteen years old or something, there’s not really much you can get up to. You never know better, and you never really know yourself, but your emotions feel real, right? And that was enough, at least for me.”

The way Junhui had set up that story, Wonwoo was only waiting for the other shoe to drop. He didn’t prompt him with a question, but looked steadily into Junhui’s eyes, and Junhui was starkly reminded of why he had broken down crying in front of his mother.

He missed this.

He missed Wonwoo.

That look—that was why they got along so well. They listened to each other, listened to more than just the words that were spoken. Wonwoo heard in Junhui’s voice each and every one of the inflections, the hesitations, the wavering, the confidence, and the bravado. He listened for the underlying meaning, the question, the suggestion. He listened with his ears, yes, but also his eyes, until Wonwoo could see the lowered energy in Junhui’s body from the way he held his arms in first position, way before Junhui had any conscious realization that he was tired. Just as Junhui could pick up the millimetre rise at the corners of Wonwoo’s lips to indicate that he was pleased from something even if he didn’t want to broadcast that fact to the rest of the world.

But he hadn’t missed Wonwoo just because Wonwoo paid attention to him and there wasn’t anyone to do that when he wasn’t around. Wonwoo paid attention to everything, caring about small details was part of who he was. And that was something Junhui liked about him, but it wasn’t what he missed most. Mostly, Junhui missed all of it.

Junhui missed his study partner, his dance partner, his spicy food eating partner. He missed that playful person who accommodated Junhui’s weird sense of humour, he missed that determined person who was always striving to be a better version of himself and gave Junhui both the determination and discipline to seek his own self-improvement. He missed the jokes, the teasing, the violence even, he missed being able to hear something and turning to catch Wonwoo’s eye and sharing a secretive grin when they both knew each other’s response. He missed the time they spent together, talking or in silence, dancing or still. He missed Wonwoo’s smiles, from the teeny tiny ones, to the huge loud guffaws, no matter which the smiles that always made Junhui’s heart flutter. He missed Wonwoo, all of him, as a complex, and brilliant, and unique human being.

It was no longer possible to distinguish whether he was compelled to Jeon Wonwoo because of the parts of Wonwoo that made him who he was or if he was compelled to the parts of Wonwoo that made him who he was was because of Jeon Wonwoo.

He looked back at Wonwoo, studied the planes of his face as if he hadn’t had them memorized in his mind and heart for months already. “The thing is, it _wasn’t_ real. He was acting out the part of a character in a movie, and I was the only person who didn’t realize we were just playing our roles for the camera.

“I thought it was really random when Mingming suggested that we apply to an arts school in a different country, but I was in deep enough that I didn’t question it. We filmed our audition clips, filled out all the forms, and I even talked my parents into it and everything. I know now that it was his way of getting me out, protecting me maybe, his idea of friendship. But that meant nothing, still means nothing to me.

“I found out the reality of the situation the day I got the news that I’d been accepted here. I was on my way to telling him when he got stopped by that wannabe alpha guy. He hadn’t bothered us in a year, at least, and I was ready to jump in, but Mingming saw me, and he put out a hand to stop me.

“And there wasn’t a fight, not exactly. Mingming raised his voice so I could hear him and told the guy that he’d done it. I wasn’t sure what he’d done, so I just listened, but I wish I hadn’t. ‘You’ve won,’ Mingming told him, ‘he’ll be miserable when he finds out that I was just pretending to like him in order to satisfy some sadistic plot of yours to ruin his life, and I’ll be under your thumb through all of high school because of your blackmail, so just let us have the rest of this year in peace.’

“There was a thunderstorm that day too. I remember running through the rain and wondering what kind of peace was to be found when you realize that you’d been living a lie, and to this day I still hate the smell of lightning, and my stupid nose can still tell when it’s supposed to rain before the clouds even roll in.

“If I were a better person, I might have tried confrontation. Instead I got on the plane to Korea and haven’t returned to China since. And that’s the story of the first and last person I’ll call ‘best friend’, and that’s why I’m going to spend the rest of my life in this country,” Junhui finished, voice hoarse from speaking for so long.

There was silence for a long time. Junhui’s throat itched but he didn’t get up for water. He wasn’t sure if his legs were numb from sitting too long in the same position without moving, or if he was just numb in general from how emotionally draining it was to recount his past. Wonwoo hadn’t so much as shifted his feet the entire time, other than a few changes in his facial expression, he hadn’t fiddled with his fingers. Junhui wondered if the story was just as numbing to someone who heard it.

“I like your nose,” Wonwoo said suddenly, voice low and tight and slightly breathless.

Oh.

That was another thing Junhui had missed.

Wonwoo’s voice and the way it settled under Junhui’s skin, like a second protective covering, a shell keeping Junhui safe. There was something so comforting about the way it sounded, even when it was being used to make fun of Junhui. It was the first time in too long that Junhui had heard Wonwoo’s voice and it washed over him, wrapped around him like a blanket. He ducked his head.

When Junhui didn’t say anything back, Wonwoo reached out a hand, and Junhui flinched away reflexively. Wonwoo pulled his arm back and gave Junhui a wounded look. “You’re scared of me,” he said.

Junhui shook his head emphatically.

“No, you’re right, you’re not scared of me. You’re scared of me one day _leaving you_. Or what, that we’d part at the end of high school and never talk to each other again? That we’d end up living in different countries?” Wonwoo’s voice was filled with incredulity. “You know, I was prepared for rejection. I was ready if you wanted to just stay friends. After you told us about Jeonghan-hyung,” Wonwoo said his name oddly, “I wondered if relationships were just something you didn’t want. And I was fine with it, fine with whatever your response was going to be, but I needed to tell you how I felt lest I went crazy keeping it to myself. A hundred scenarios in my head, but none of them…”

“None of them were _me_ pulling a Jeonghan-hyung on _you_ ,” Junhui guessed. “You’re right to be mad.”

Wonwoo pulled his entire body back this time, looking even more stung. “I’m not _angry_ , Junhui, yes I was – still am – upset, yes I was hurt, but my first response wasn’t to be _pissed_ at you. It actually hurts more thinking that you didn’t trust me to have good intentions. But I get it, and if possible, anger is even less of an emotion I feel now, knowing that you were discarded like that.”

“Whether it’s anger or hurt, I’m sorry. That’s the real reason I wanted to talk to you today, not to tell you a long and convoluted story. I wanted to say I know I did a lot of things wrong, and I’m sorry for all of them. I don’t think that an apology is really going to smooth all this over though, but if you give me a chance, I’ll try to make up for what I’ve done.”

“What _have_ you done?” Wonwoo whispered, and he lifted his hands up again, before pausing. Junhui, sensing that Wonwoo was worried he was going to avoid him again, leaned forward and Wonwoo slipped his fingers through Junhui’s hair. Junhui closed his eyes and shuddered at the touch, so achingly intimate even though near-strangers had played with his hair before. “I can’t believe you cut your hair. I loved your long hair.” Wonwoo curled his knuckles, uncaring of the hair gel now covering his hands, and rubbed the pads of his fingers against Junhui’s scalp in a gentle massage. “But this haircut is nice too, you look really hot.”

Junhui’s eyes snapped open and he looked at Wonwoo’s face, the sharp angles of his cheekbones, the laugh lines around his nose. Wonwoo’s eyes were bright, his smile hopeful if slightly weak, and Junhui burst into tears.

“I don’t understand why I’m the one crying,” Junhui whispered hoarsely. Wonwoo brushed off his hands so he could wipe Junhui’s tears off his cheeks with his thumbs. “I’m the one who hurt _you_.”

Wonwoo smiled wider and nodded, before standing and helping Junhui up. He kept his fingers wrapped around Junhui’s wrist as he tugged him toward his bag, and didn’t let go until he had to use that hand to pull out a pack of tissues. Wonwoo dabbed at Junhui’s face, pressed gently against his eyes, and then pressed a plastic bottle into Junhui’s hands. “Clearly hurting me hurt you too, and that gives me confidence.”

Junhui swallowed a large gulp of water down, and returned the bottle miserably to Wonwoo’s backpack, the left mesh sleeve, not the right, Wonwoo had a thing about that.

“Just so we don’t have any further misunderstanding, you need to tell me what you want now. Do we go back to being friends now or…?”

“What do _you_ want?” Junhui asked. “I know what kissing you is like, so it would make things difficult thinking of you in a strictly friend sense when I’m in love with you, but I can do friends.”

“ _In love with me_?” Wonwoo repeated.

“For a long long time. I should have known when my entire body froze up the first time you smiled at me that things were headed in that direction, but by the time summer rolled around, I was already in over my head.”

“The first time I smiled at you?”

“You have a very nice face and you’re very good at dancing. It’s not my fault that I find it really attractive when people are good at what they do!”

“You like my face?” Wonwoo asked, voice a little husky.

“Quite a lot,” Junhui confessed with a sigh. “I also like your stupid puns, your crazy huge appetite, and your insistence on achieving perfection. Should I go on?”

“I’m all for ego stroking,” Wonwoo grinned, “but we’ve already wasted so much time.”

“Oh?”

“I can’t pinpoint a precise moment either, but you kept doing things that made me like you more and more. Working hard during our rehearsals. Being observant during movies. The dog thing. The stuff you did on my birthday. What I’m saying is…me too.”

Junhui licked his lips slowly. “Me too what?”

“I want us to be more than friends. _But_ we have to agree not to respond to problems by not talking to each other. The first time was torture, this time turned my life into an absolute mess, and if it happens again, I don’t think I’ll _survive_.”

“We can't expect everything to go smoothly though,” Junhui pointed out.

“No. Fighting keeps things healthy, anyway. The point is even if we disagree or if something happens, we have to talk things out. Work together. Work hard at things when they don’t work out, try to make up instead of break up, get through things instead of ignoring them.”

“Does this mean you forgive me for this time?”

Wonwoo bit his lip. “It means I want to. But you’ll have to give me some time. My heart is pretty closed off right now.”

“I understand,” Junhui said. He leaned back, just a little bit, enough to give Wonwoo space and room to breathe. “Slow and steady wins the race right? Besides, I’d wait an entire lifetime for you. Multiple lifetimes. You could stomp on my heart in each one and I’d still try to open your heart again.”

“Really?” Wonwoo asked softly.

“Yeah. Because you opened up mine. And in the weeks while I was being an asshole, I realized it wouldn’t matter even if you abandoned me on centre stage without any clothes or music. Even just the memories you gave me, those months of happiness, they were worth it. _You’re_ worth any pain this world can give me.”

Wonwoo inhaled sharply. “I already thought you were hot with this haircut, you weren’t supposed to get hotter,” he complained.

“Sorry,” Junhui said, backing up automatically. “I’m really sorry about everything, you know, I’m prepared to spend the rest of my life working to make up for how much of a dick I was to you.”

“Stop talking,” Wonwoo said, taking a step forward. “I’m going to kiss you now.” He took another step forward.

Junhui’s eyes followed Wonwoo’s mouth until they were too close to focus on. His eyelids fluttered to a close, and he leaned in, relishing in the feeling of Wonwoo’s lips pressed against his own. He thought he had created an unrealistic fantasy out of the memory of the first time they had kissed, there was no way it had been as wonderful as it felt. But his memory didn’t do this feeling justice. There were no words to describe the bliss Junhui felt then, and there was tightness in his face. He wanted to cry again, this time from happiness, and the absurdity of it made him smile against Wonwoo’s mouth.

Wonwoo pulled back and hummed lightly, soaking in Junhui’s delighted face with a matching smile of his own. His hands ended up in Junhui’s hair again, fingers clutched tightly around the unfamiliarly short strands, providing grip for him to maneuver their mouths together again. He nipped lightly at Junhui’s lower lip, teeth scraping gently before being replaced by his tongue, hot and wet and drawing delightful noises from Junhui’s throat.

He coaxed out Junhui’s tongue with his own, playfully, gently. Wonwoo kissed like he did everything: amazingly, surely, kindly, confidently. Junhui was just along for the ride, and there was nothing in the world he was more grateful for. Junhui’s arms came to wrap around Wonwoo’s waist, hands resting against his lower back and holding him tight. Wonwoo paused at the movement, angled his head the other direction, and returned right where he left off, covering Junhui’s mouth with his own over and over again. He swiped his tongue against Junhui’s again, this time with some finality, before finally drawing away, fingers still resting against Junhui’s jaw.

“I thought slow was the keyword,” Junhui muttered breathlessly. He hadn’t even noticed that his back had been digging into the barre the entire time, but now that Wonwoo had stopped doing that lovely thing with his mouth, he could feel the soreness in his spine.

“This _is_ slow,” Wonwoo murmured, smile a little catty and beautiful and still making Junhui’s stomach do backflips after all this time. Or that could have been because of the insinuation in Wonwoo’s words. Wonwoo did have a certain effect on him. “Come on, we’re clearly not using this studio for its intended purpose.”

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

It was unclear whether the change happened because Soonyoung had complained to Jihoon, who acquiesced and enforced terror over the lot of them, or if it were Jihoon himself who had finally gotten sick of having to listen to increasingly screechy sing-offs, but Jihoon put his foot down for their holiday get together as, “Absolutely no karaoke. Stupid cheesy Christmas movies only. Don’t make me have to commit murder when we’re supposed to be celebrating some dead guy’s birthday.”

Junhui and Wonwoo showed up to the lounge together, Junhui’s hands in the pockets of an athletic jacket, the earrings Wonwoo had bought him for his birthday easily visible with his hair no longer at a length to cover his ears.

Wonwoo had one hand tucked inside of the sleeve of his grey sweater, the other shoved into the pocket of his jeans. He lifted his sleeved hand to rub at the back of his neck when six heads turned to the doorway and stared at the two of them.

“A Christmas miracle!” Soonyoung cheered, tossing a pillow at their heads, but not choosing a target and therefore missing them both.

“This is the worst possible outcome,” Mingyu and Jihoon said at the same time, matching looks of horror on their faces from the realization that their friends were no longer pretending the other didn’t exist, and then renewed looks of disgust at realizing that they had the same reaction.

“Control your boyfriend!” Mingyu shrieked at Soonyoung, curled up in a ball on the floor while Jihoon smacked a pillow over his head repeatedly. There was a look of glee on Jihoon’s face, as if he were enjoying the sounds of pain Mingyu was making, and it made Wonwoo and Junhui steer clear of both of them when trying to enter the room.

Soonyoung bounced his knees up and down happily, vibrating in his seat. “You have no idea how good it feels to hear someone say that about Jihoon to me,” he said to Seokmin. “Normally it’s people asking him to restrain me. This is amazing.”

Seungkwan’s nostrils flared, and his eyebrows creased, like he wasn’t sure which person in the room he was supposed to judge more. “Come over here,” he beckoned to Junhui and Wonwoo from his armchair, “there’s hot chocolate and waaay too many snacks.”

“There can never be too many snacks,” Junhui said solemnly, and he happily accepted a cup from Seungkwan before passing it over to Wonwoo. He then took the next cup with a quiet thanks, and slid down to sit on the ground, legs stretched out in front of him, one arm beside him to prop up his weight.

“Esnacktly,” Wonwoo murmured. Junhui choked on his own saliva.

“Please never do that again,” Seungkwan said, while glaring at a bag of potato chips. He continued to fight the snack with his eyes for a good minute, before throwing his hands up and opening it, shoving a handful into his mouth in the blink of an eye. Minghao absently patted Seungkwan’s thigh, distracted by the text message conversation he was having on his phone.

“Are we going to watch something or not?” Minghao asked eventually, tucking his phone into his back pocket with a huge grin. Probably something sappy going on in his life.

“You can go ahead and put the DVD in,” Junhui said with a snort. Jihoon and Mingyu were still fighting, but Soonyoung had moved from his seat to lie stomach-down across the floor, propped up on his elbows, chin in his hands. Seokmin managed to wrest the pillow out of Jihoon’s hands, and it made Soonyoung pout before he was up and trying to placate Jihoon into sitting down and “be the better man, Jihoon, be benevolent and kind to the plebeians in your presence just for Christmas, hm?”

Mingyu scowled, stormed off to take up a spot on the couch, and hoarded all the pillows in his grasp. Seungkwan rolled his eyes and tossed Mingyu a bag of chips, pretending not to have purposefully aimed for Mingyu’s face. Seokmin joined in beside Mingyu on the sofa, and Minghao took the remaining spot after turning off the lights and grabbing a giant quilt. Soonyoung rolled over to sit up on the floor, and Jihoon took a chair and rested his chin on top of Soonyoung’s head.

Something like ten minutes in, Junhui felt the brush of soft fabric against the side of his hand on the floor, and looked down to see Wonwoo’s pinky finger poking out of the sleeve of his sweater to loop around Junhui’s own. Junhui curled his finger, squeezing back once, and looked up to see Wonwoo’s smile illuminated by the glare of the television screen. It was a smile with teeth, and deep laugh lines, reaching all the way to his eyes. Junhui’s heart nearly gave out in his chest at how quickly it expanded, and his stomach could win Olympic gold in gymnastics for the somersaults it was doing. He turned back to the film with his mouth dancing around on his face, unsure what expression it should rest in, unable to refrain from demonstrating his joy.

Their fingers remained intertwined throughout the rest of the movie, all the way until Minghao yelled out, “Hey, it’s snowing outside! We should have a snowball fight!”

As a group, they trooped outside after grabbing their winter coats, only to be disappointed that there was barely enough snow to cover the ground, much less pick up and throw at other people.

That didn’t stop Soonyoung from getting his fingers cold and wet and shoving them down Jihoon’s neck. Jihoon retaliated by kicking Soonyoung in the shins, and laughing while Soonyoung hopped up and down with pain.

He set off a chain of events while jumping, including bouncing onto Seokmin’s foot, who flailed out an arm and nearly poked out one of Mingyu’s eyes. Mingyu ducked, hands covered in snow, and with his eyes still screwed shut, pressed his hands forward onto the nearest person’s face, who happened to be Seungkwan instead of Seokmin. Enraged, Seungkwan took matters into his own hands, shrieking like a harpy as he ran around, trying to cover everyone’s faces or necks with the snow that was melting in his hands. Minghao ended up catching him, pinning Seungkwan’s arms to his sides so Junhui could repay him by dumping a handful of snow down Seungkwan’s shirt, before both of them ran away.

Junhui ended up barrelling into Wonwoo, who stumbled forward with a soft oof, and then blinked at Junhui unzipping his jacket.

“Junhui-ya.”

“Wonwoo-ya?” Junhui pulled Wonwoo into a hug, wrapping Wonwoo’s arms around his torso before tucking his ginormous puffy coat around both of them.

“It’s cold,” Wonwoo said before burying his face in Junhui’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Junhui said, patting Wonwoo’s back. Sharing a jacket like this made them immobile and prone to attack. Junhui pushed Wonwoo down while Seokmin ran at them with a gleeful look in his eye, and took the brunt of the snow to the side of his face. He wrinkled his nose to get it to slide off, and tapped Wonwoo’s shoulder to tell him he could look up again.

“You’re warm,” Wonwoo said with a soft sigh, breathing in Junhui’s skin with his nose pressed to the side of Junhui’s neck.

“Yeah.”

“We should start working on the synchronization for our dance now, we’re going to have to make up for lost time if we want to come first.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m better than you at math.”

“What?”

“Just checking that you weren’t saying yes without listening.”

Junhui snorted. “What could capture my attention more than you?”

“I don’t know, but you’re distracted,” Wonwoo declared.

“Why are you so good at noticing things?” Junhui muttered. “Fine, you’re right. Let’s sneak inside so I can tell you why.”

They tracked water into the dorms with them, but neither noticed. Both were too fixated on their hands clasped together inside Junhui’s pocket, warm and fitted while Junhui guided both of them into his room. In fact, Wonwoo was still focused on the feeling of Junhui’s knuckles underneath his thumb when a pair of familiar looking onyx earrings were thrust under his nose.

“Are you giving me back the present I gave you for your birthday?”

“What? No! Of course not, these are… I made Mingyu take me to the store where you bought them, but they had sold out or stopped carrying them at the end of the season so I basically had to hunt these down across shops in the city.”

“Huh.”

“It’s…you have a lot of rings,” Junhui blurted.

Wonwoo rolled his eyes and took the earrings from Junhui’s hands. No one else was around to see them now, but Wonwoo still wanted to put them in. Even if it was just for the two of them, that was enough. “It’s called accessorizing. I know you’ve never heard of it, but I assure you that it’s a thing people do.”

“Don’t take jabs at my fashion sense,” Junhui said sadly. “But…It’s…That wasn’t what I meant to say.”

“Okay,” Wonwoo said, shucking off his coat, and picking up Junhui’s as well to hang them on the back of the door. “Do tell.” He stopped to look at himself in the mirror, head turned to get a good glimpse of the earrings, before reaching an arm out to tug Juhui towards him so that they could both see.

Junhui stared at Wonwoo’s face for a long while, unable to tear his eyes away from the smile on Wonwoo’s face. It took Wonwoo elbowing him in the ribs for him to take in the way the two of them looked, Junhui’s arms wrapped around Wonwoo, Wonwoo’s hands covering Junhui’s hands over his stomach. “I didn’t want to be presumptuous, you know, rings can mean _a lot_ and I didn’t think, I didn’t know if, I mean earrings…” Junhui frowned.

“If you’re concerned that I’ll forget to remove jewellery before ballet classes and get yelled at, don’t worry about it, I learned that lesson from someone else,” Wonwoo teased.

Junhui let go of Wonwoo’s waist and glared. “Do you wanna fight?”

“With you? Always. And then make up again. No ignoring each other again, ever.”

“Look, just, matching sets of earrings are neater, okay? Besides—”

Wonwoo spun around and cut him off with a kiss. “You’re right,” he said, cupping Junhui’s jaw with one hand, and using the other to place Junhui’s arms around him again. “And I like these a lot, obviously. Almost as much as I like you.”

“Just how much do you like me?”

Wonwoo showed Junhui with his lips.

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

They had their last meeting with Han-saem just before the turn of the new year, after only one session spent drilling their choreography. It was apparently enough, because in the studio, Han-saem simply applauded for half a minute while both of them caught their breaths again at the end of the music. They bowed at him, something between a proper ballet révérence and a formal greeting, words of thanks falling from their lips.

“I’m not supposed to actually help you boys but I will say that you two need the least help anyway,” he said afterward, pen flying across the page on his clipboard. He was done writing up his report within moments, clicking his pen with gusto, and smiling at both of them warmly. “I’m proud of both of you and how far you’ve come since your entry auditions. Junhui, I’m glad you were able to get through even though your Chinese friend wasn’t here with you.”

Junhui ducked his head and turned it into another bow while Han-saem headed for the door. It didn’t hurt to think about Mingming at all, and instead of the pungent odour of ozone filling his nose, Junhui could only smell fresh snow and canvas ballet slippers.

“Do you think he was telling the truth or exaggerating?” Wonwoo wondered anxiously.

“Relax,” Junhui said, answering Wonwoo’s real rather than asked question, “we’ll get first place.”

“Not if we don’t practice, we won’t.” Wonwoo spun on his toes. “Let’s run that again. Ten times, at least.”

“Ten times, no more,” Junhui countered. “What good will it do us if we rehearse when we’re too tired to keep up good technique?”

They were sitting on Wonwoo’s bed, later, boneless and exhausted from spending hours in the studio when Soonyoung found them.

“No, no, no,” Soonyoung wailed.

Wonwoo’s head was rested against Junhui’s stomach, the rest of him lying between Junhui’s legs. Each was reading a novel; Junhui was holding his in one hand, slightly off to the side, his other hand was combing gently over Wonwoo’s bangs. They looked up simultaneously at the intrusion, and Junhui shot Wonwoo a puzzled look. Wonwoo shook his head, and returned to his book.

Soonyoung looked pained. “Are you two _dating_? I thought you were just friends again. What is this?”

Junhui shrugged, patted Wonwoo’s cheek twice, and resumed threading his fingers through Wonwoo’s hair.

“There’s still time to change this scenario. Junhui, get off the bed, Wonwoo, stop looking so self-satisfied. Listen, you two, I don’t have the money to pay for Jihoon’s meals for an entire week!” He said angrily, voice becoming more strangled as he spoke. There was a manic semi-smile on his face, and he leaned his head out the door before rushing back inside.

“Seriously, move it! Now! Jihoon can’t always be right, please don’t let Jihoon _know_ that he’s always right.”

“But Jihoon _is_ always right and he already knows that,” came the voice in the doorway.

Soonyoung slapped a hand to his forehead and groaned.

“What are you whining about now?” Jihoon asked curiously, shutting the door behind him and making a beeline for the desk chair in order to drop a pad of manuscript paper for his next composition.

“Do you not see this?” Soonyoung asked, jabbing his index fingers in the direction of the bed. “Look at them!”

Jihoon waved a hand impatiently. “Don’t worry, I already told Wonwoo I’d kill him slowly and cut him up into so many pieces they’d have to dig up the entire country to find all his body parts if he hurts Junhui.”

“You already did _what_?” Soonyoung shrieked. “You knew?”

“Yeah, I’d say I knew,” Jihoon said wryly. “Couldn’t really mistake it when I found them making out in the janitor’s closet. The same janitor’s closet Junhui found us in once, actually, wait, I don’t want to talk about that one.”

“Why didn’t you say something to me?” Soonyoung draped himself over Jihoon’s shoulders, arms hanging limply around his neck.

Jihoon shrugged. “I thought you already knew. You’re the people person, aren’t you?”

Soonyoung whimpered. “No one tells me anything, I’m just supposed to intuit everything on my own. It’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair,” Jihoon deadpanned.

“My wallet…I’m broke, Jihoonie, just spare me on this one bet, please. I can’t afford buying three meals a day for an entire month.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to cough up on that. Designed a whole menu and everything.”

“No, Jihoon, please don’t say that.”

“Do you know offensive it is that you two made a bet about our relationship and are now bickering in front of us about it while we’re trying to read in peace?” Wonwoo asked.

“Can’t be as offensive as your face,” Jihoon shot back.

“Junhui likes my face,” Wonwoo murmured with a smirk.

“That’s fucking disgusting. Forget it Soonyoung, I can’t stomach anything after that shit,” Jihoon grumbled.

“Quick, Junhui, what else do you like about Wonwoo? We have to get rid of Jihoon’s appetite for the rest of the month.”

 

ϟ ϟ ϟ

 

It was a well known fact that the top three groups as adjudicated during the year end performance were given not just medals, certificates, and flowers, but also top marks for their overall independent project. It was also a well known fact that there had never been a non-classical group who had placed in the top three for all the years since contemporary and other styles were permitted for the project. But Jihoon and Soonyoung were perfectionists, and as they stood off stage with the rest of their graduating class, waiting for the dance results, Soonyoung tried not to grimace at Jihoon twisting his arm painfully. Adrenaline was still pumping through this body, and it dulled the pulling of his skin somewhat, but if Jihoon dug his fingernails in any harder, he was going to draw blood. It was pride that was on the line, and sometimes that was even more important than golds or one hundred percents.

Wonwoo had been aiming to be the best of the best since day one, but standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Junhui, he was surprisingly devoid of nervousness. There had been a prolonged hush after their performance, a moment when the entire audience had been silent and collectively holding their breaths, before they got the only standing ovation of the night. He didn’t want to brag, but he thought they deserved it. It wasn’t just that their choreography was beautiful, or that their movements were flawless, but that the story was theirs, and they had shaped it into something delicate and intimate, something to move others as much as their own hearts were touched. There was something magical about dance that could do that, about art in general, and to have achieved it in his final performance was exceptional enough that Wonwoo didn’t need outside validation for what they had achieved. He knew their worth.

Third place was announced first, and Soonyoung cheered the loudest, not really from happiness that they won bronze, but because Jihoon final released Soonyoung’s arm to slap his hands to his own face. Soonyoung climbed the stairs first, rubbing at the red patches on his skin, and Jihoon spent the entire time while they were bowing pinching his own thigh to make sure it was real. When Junhui and Wonwoo took the stage to receive their first place prize, the applause was loud, but Mingyu yelling their names over din was even louder. In the end, however, the group that got the loudest cheers was Park Soohee and her partner, having finally showed the teachers who kept berating her why she had been accepted to an arts school in the first place.

“See, if I actually know what the choreography is, I can concentrate on the dancing, and I’m good at it!” Soohee huffed. Her partner snorted while Hyejin simply smiled and wrapped her arm around Soohee’s waist.

“I always had faith in you,” Junhui said diplomatically, “you were a good partner to have in class over the years.”

“Yeah, yeah, but you ditched me the second someone pretty looked your direction, so don’t think I’m not onto you, Junhui,” Soohee snarked.

“I still stand by my statement that hip hop is harder than ballet,” Soonyoung said casually.

Mingyu raised an eyebrow. “Don’t be bitter, it’s not a good look on you.”

“Nothing’s a good look on him,” Jihoon said with an unusually wide grin.

Mingyu wrinkled his nose and shared a look with Minghao. “Anyway, let’s just be happy that all of your groups did so well.”

“Right?” Wonwoo sighed happily. “The glorious group of of graduating gay geniuses.”

“Technically I’m bi, not gay,” Soonyoung piped in.

“What?” Junhui asked.

“He likes both guys and girls, keep up Junhui-oppa, you’ve been in Korea longer than me,” Jieqiong explained impatiently.

“Why do you have to ruin all of my jokes, Soonyoung?” Wonwoo grumbled.

“Well, we can’t have you thinking that you’re actually funny or something.”

“Junhui thinks I’m funny!”

Mingyu leaned in. “Hyung, did you know that Junhui-hyung used to help me practice my lines for drama? He did really well in all those elective acting classes.”

“You’re all horrible,” Wonwoo muttered, and he dragged Junhui out of the green room to find their parents.

Bohyuk made some terribly vulgar comment about Wonwoo getting laid that their mother pretended not to hear or understand, and Junhui kept up his ninety-degree bow so that she couldn’t see the blush on his face.

“There you are,” Minghao announced, holding hands with Feng Jun. “See?” He said squatting down and switching to Mandarin. “I told you we’d find your older brother.”

Junhui held out his arms for a hug, but was completely ignored by Feng Jun running and jumping into Wonwoo’s chest, sending him stumbling backward and instinctively reaching around to hug him and hold him in place.

“You’re even more handsome in person!” Feng Jun gushed in rapid fire Mandarin, “And taller. I think you’re as tall as my brother! You were really good on stage, I watched you dance and didn’t fall asleep. When I grow up I want to be as tall and handsome as you!”

Wonwoo nodded during all the pauses, bright eyed and smiling, and twirled Feng Jun around while he tried to catch his breath.

“He can’t even understand Chinese,” Junhui grouched. Minghao laughed at Junhui’s betrayed look.

“I’m sure enthusiasm transcends language,” a familiar voice said, from behind Junhui.

He spun around and dove into his mother’s arms, engulfed by his father hugging both of them when he joined.

“You look good, my son,” his father whispered, “I’m happy for you. Congratulations.” Whether he was talking about Junhui’s life in general or winning first was up in the air.

“It’s good to see you too, Xiao Hao,” his father said, and Minghao nearly fell over when he received two hugs as well.

“Now, where’s our little friend?”

“Um.”

His mother clucked her tongue and patted Junhui’s butt. “How did I raise you? Look at your partner, he’s skin and bones. Why aren’t you feeding him better?”

“What?” Junhui asked, but he received no reply, as his parents had moved off to extricate Feng Jun from Wonwoo’s shoulders.

Junhui switched back into Korean, muttering angrily at his family’s backs. “Did you see that? Why does my family like Wonwoo more than me? Who did they come to watch because it sure as hell wasn’t their first son.”

Minghao folded his arms over his chest and stared at Junhui with amusement. “Are you going to translate any of this for him?”

Junhui turned to look at him. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Minghao’s jaw dropped. “Really? You’re not embarrassed by the fact that your little brother is basically telling your boyfriend all the reasons you like him and that you’ve shared with your family?”

“Why would I be embarrassed by something like that?”

“It doesn’t make sense! When you first met Wonwoo-hyung you were embarrassed by literally everything that happened in front of him.”

“True. That should have been a sign, don’t you think, that he was different? That I cared about what he thought more? Jeez, Xiao Hao, if you were a better friend you would have pointed that out to me earlier.”

“I did!” Minghao exclaimed with incredulity, “I said that the very first time when you said he saw you singing naked and off key in the locker rooms!”

“Oh, that. Yeah, I felt like I had better leave you at it so I was trying to hurry up and leave, but then I fell over while putting on my socks.” Wonwoo’s arm came to rest around Junhui’s shoulders. “Trust me, I’ve heard much worse. Have you ever experienced the croaking noises Mingyu calls singing?”

Minghao threw his hands up into the air and stormed off in the direction of Feng Jun, who was busy trying to drag his parents toward the refreshments table.

Junhui snorted. “It wasn’t even that bad.”

“Right? I’ve seen you land face first after chaînés across the room. Honestly, you’re the most embarrassing person I know.”

“Yeah but you love me,” Junhui mumbled, turning his head to rub his face against Wonwoo’s neck.

“Yeah. I do.”

Junhui’s heart fluttered, like it hadn’t stopped fluttering since the first time he saw Wonwoo’s cabrioles, the beating of his legs making a sound like the fluttering of butterfly wings.

“Love you too.”

He felt the muscles of Wonwoo’s cheeks lift up, and the butterflies residing his stomach fluttered their own brightly-coloured wings. They were at home in Junhui’s tummy now, had found nectar to sustain themselves in the form of Junhui’s happiness. At any moment they were ready to take off into full flight, swooping throughout his insides every time Wonwoo smiled and Junhui fell a little more in love.

It wasn’t just the butterflies who were at home now, but also Junhui himself. Home was where the heart was, and Wen Junhui’s heart was with Jeon Wonwoo.

**Author's Note:**

>  **end**.
> 
> ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ
> 
> dance notes.  
> ϟ unfortunately, there is no clip i can link to show you what the final choreography looked like as it was of my own design, however, i hope the following links can help you build the imagery in your own mind.  
> ϟ [here is a clip of jorge barani](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_VE64GXjQQ) performing:   
> 0:01 a saut de basque  
> 0:06 a side double cabriole  
> 0:22 pirouettes  
> 0:43 a series of 540s  
> ϟ [here is a barrel roll jump](https://youtu.be/tO1jIf8uekE?t=1m51s). carlos acosta begins with a series of beautiful saut de basques (if you are interested in seeing them again), and at 0:49 he demonstrates some jetés entrelacés.  
> ϟ [this channel](https://www.youtube.com/user/theballet00/videos) provides several clips of basic movements including the glissade, sissonde, tombée pas de bourée, rond de jambe, failli, and chaînés. additionally, [here are some brisés](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS3Jr7iPw9Y) for your time, and [six minutes worth of fouettés](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07viCHYpfLQ), for the really keen.  
> ϟ finally, [the across the back roll](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtXSEk0Q7Js) is more of a swing aerial than strictly ballet.  
> i am happy to chat if you have any other questions on this subject (or anything else, really)! 
> 
> ♫ music notes.  
> ϟ ϟ here is the music for wonhui’s choreography: [fauré’s élégie op. 24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPqtoL9V-Gk).  
> ϟ ϟ the lyrics (and reason for the little lightning bolts strewn throughout the fic) in the beginning and end notes come from [coldplay’s _miracles_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7atDQreame4). this was the background music for when svt where given their rings back on 17 project/debut big plan, and i’ve cried every single time i watch them sob into their parents’ arms.   
>  ϟ ϟ the song junhui sings in the locker room/shower is [andy lau’s _seventeen years old_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kO1rSs4vRQ). i love andy lau (does that make me old??? everyone loves andy lau right???) and i thought the title appropriate. 
> 
> setting notes.  
> ϟ ϟ ϟ the story may be set in korea, but this specific arts high school is entirely fictional. the setting draws from a variety of sources. any cultural incongruences are mistakes of my own (but i would be grateful for any knowledge/insight about things that were overlooked during my research – please teach me!).
> 
> character and pairing notes.  
>  if you have not read the fic, let me first ask that you consider reading it without knowledge of the non-wonhui pairings.  
> ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ although svt have agreed upon using their birth years to delineate ages and seungkwan refers to members of 97-line as ‘hyung’, he technically is in the same grade as the rest of them in school, and has been included as such in the story.   
> ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ zhou jieqiong is a current pledis trainee featured on produce 101, although aged a year for our purposes. there are several other somewhat-original female characters loosely based on other kpop idols.  
> ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ for borrowing seventeen’s names, their families’ names, and the names of countless other individuals associated with pledis, and so forth, i disclaim any reality to the events of this story.   
> pairings  
> side: jihoon/soonyoung; jieqiong/minghao; implied ofc/ofc;  
> past: junhui/mingming, past unfulfilled junhui/junghan
> 
> final acknowledgements.  
> ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ with thanks to team jj for inspiring me and being the strongest people i know: ttjj and mmjj who helped me to get up off my ass, as well as jjj who answered my weird questions at weird hours;  
> ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ all my love to darling L, without whom none of this would have been possible, and to A+A for all their hand-holding;  
> ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ lastly, to you, dear reader, if you have stayed with me this long, please accept my sincerest gratitude. 
> 
> ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ
> 
>  
> 
> _oh,_  
>  now i'm floating  
> so high  
> i blossom and die


End file.
